Identity
by Jovovich
Summary: Lots of Action. Femslash. She does not know who she is. After waking up on a fishing boat near Italy, Alice tries to find her true identity. With the help of Claire, she will realize that many things are about to change in the world.
1. I Can't Remember

A/N 1: So this is my first time writing something like this. It was supposed to be like a Alice/Carlos thing at first but then I started reading Clarice FFs, and well now I´m on that ship... I just love those two together... Uhm anyway, yeah this is my first FF and I don't have a Beta, so please bear with me.

A/N2: Now, about the story, The main idea of this FF is from The Bourne Identity, wich is a really cool movie, so I'm trying to put this two worlds together (not like a crossover), and I'll follow (slightly) both scripts (the ones from the Bourne Saga, and the ones from the Resident Evil movies). Oh and also I´ll add some parts from the games, because I just love them.

A/N3: About Clarise, ok these two are really badass girls, and I don't think the fluffy things and stuff like that should be seen at the very beginning (my opinion, don't burn me). So if you are looking for action, a little romance, a bit humor and zombies this is for you.

A/N4: I like to write in omniscient, but occasionally I'll change to a character POV (which I shall indicate). Dialog is in "". And finally: Flashbacks, dreams, thoughts on italics.

Disclaimer: I do not own ANY of these characters; Resident Evil Movies belongs to Paul. W. Anderson, the Bourne Identity to Tony Gilroy, and the R.E movies to Capcom. The only thing I own here is the mash-up thing xD

Well, enough said. (Please Rewiew? :])

* * *

**I Can't Remember**

Darkness.

The sound o thunder and wind along with the constant rain causes a never-ceasing fear in the hearts of even the bravest's. A stormy night in the immense ocean, and the darkness is actually water around, on an endless landscape of hazardous waves. It really is the unleashed fury of nature in one of the most remote place in the world.

A searchlight cut the darkness of the night; it is the beacon of an aging fishing trawler that sails with trouble across the heavy ocean swells. Waves up to 3 meters high rocks the ship leaving spray all over the deck, but half a dozen flashlights, with weaker beams, can be seen all over the stern in such a dark night.

Fishermen, struggling with fishing nets trying to beat the storm in such a horrendous place. One of them looks at the ocean hoping to find a hint of dawn and with it a feeling of a new day of hope but what he sees, what he really sees, is a completely different thing. First he thinks that his eyes are fooling him, there's something in the water, something that really looks like a…

"MAN ON THE WATER!"

More like a corpse.

Six pair of footsteps runs through the sticky deck, a few peer through the gangway to see if the dark and the wind have turned them mad.

"Get him out of there," shouts the captain.

Four men strongly hold the gaff and pull it to make the body out of water and with a thud it falls on the deck, the six men gather around their new discovery, shocked. They all look at the body, thin, sculptural, long legs, curves... the woman may have been in her twenties before she died, blond messy hair matted all over her face. She was beautiful, seemingly, sea decomposition has not done anything on her yet.

"It's a woman" One of them says, pointing out what all of them already have notice.

Suddenly, everyone starts talking at once, three languages going, and the body sprawled there.

"Dios Mío…"

"We need to get rid of it…."

They all think the same thing: the presence of death in the ship, bad omen.

"Look at her…" One of them bends down and with a shaking hand lift up a bit of her black blouse.

"Don't to that…."

"No, no look" The Italian man says "She was shot"

Indeed, there was a bullet wound just below her ribs, however it didn't seems to be a fatal one.

"We should get rid of it…" Another repeats nudging the body.

"Stop it Robyr!"

"What? She's dead, you think she cares? We should…."

But the man is interrupted by a slight movement in the body. First convulsing, coughing up sea water. The sailors freaked jumping back, standing there as the woman begins to breathe.

Four strong arms carry the motionless body, but still alive, of the women. The whole crew enters the bunk room of the fishing boat, a complete wreck. Two sailor sweeps off the table, and rough hands lay the woman down, but the room is too small for all the people in there.

The captain watches, brutal and impatient, from the door as Giancarlo is searching for a medical kit buried in the shambles. Giancarlo is sixty, the oldest of them all and the only one who can save the woman at the moment.

"It's here" Giancarlo mutters "Hang on…it's here somewhere, give me a minute"

"Get her some blankets" the captain shouts to no one in particular and one of the sailors rushes to follow the orders given.

"Here it is" Giancarlo, with an old trunk approaches the table.

He looks at the trunk, but it's useless.

"She needs a doctor" He says looking at the captain with concern.

"Fuck that" One of the man, Robyr, shouts "She was already dead back there, we picked her up and that's all we can do"

"Giancarlo" Says the captain ignoring the other man, Giancarlo turns back. "You do what you can, but we're not going back to the port just because of this woman"

His voice is steel.

"You understand?"

"Yes, sir"

Then he turns to the rest of the crew.

"Let's get back to work!"

Then minutes later the room is transformed into a makeshift operating room, a light swings overhead. Giancarlo its been playing doctor over the past 20 minutes, the woman is still unconscious on the greasy table, turned into her left side. He looks at her face one more time, deciding whether or not to dig into the bullet holes, he has already cut the bottom of her blouse to get a better access to the wounds. Two bullets wounds in the back.

"Ok then" He says as he makes a decision.

Trying to do as little damage as possible, and with a flashlight between his teeth, he embeds some tweezers into the wound… TINK TINK TINK... bullet fragments fall into a jar of olive washed and sterilized at its best.

"It wasn't so difficult," he says to himself.

Then something catch Giancarlo's eyes, a small scar on the woman's hip, but this is not a gunshot wound, and it certainly seems to be healing for the past several days. Cutting in a small incision with a knife, and extracting with the tweezers he withdrawl a small plastic tube, not a bullet at all, and as it comes free…

Blue eyes snap open. Waking up from a long and blurred dream. Before Giancarlo's brain can process what's going on a small but strong hand slams down onto the old man. And with a quick, agile move the woman gets off the table behind the old man, holding his arm back into a painful wrench.

"You're awake" Giancarlo says in pain. "You've been shot…. I'm trying to help you…. Can you hear me?"

She surely can hear him, and she even understands a bit of what he's saying but something within her body is not working right, she can't let go the man, the mechanism to protect herself runs all over her veins, she's feeling dazed and confused.

"Look, you have to let me go" Giancarlo says. "I'm trying to help you; we need to heal your wounds"

She's trying to find her voice, but she cannot do it. Only when she fully understands what the man is saying she releases him. The old man takes a few steps away from her, breathing heavily and watching her with fear and curiosity.

"Wha?..." She's trying, but a sharp pinch at her side makes her stop.

"You were in the water. You've been shot" Giancarlo starts to explain. "It's okay now."

"Where am I?" She manages to speak, why a husky and unknown voice. Everything around her starts to move, she leans on the table for support.

"You're on a boat." He approaches the woman, helping her to climb onto the table again. "A fishing boat with an Italian flag. We're out of Vietri."

"How did I get here?" She closes her eyes as a headache starts to form in her head.

"You we're lost at sea. They pulled you out… I think it's the cold that saved you. I mean… the water. Your wounds look clean, I'm not a doctor but they look okay... still I think we should cover them with gauze to prevent an infection."

Infection

Silence.

"You were shot…two bullets in the back" He tries again.

Still she says nothing.

"Do you understand?" Giancarlo says, but again nothing. "Who are you?"

A long dead pause until she looks at him straight in the eye. Those piercing blue eyes. It's not perfection but its close.

"I don't know" she finally says.

* * *

_She's at the interior of a security room, there are cages all around the walls, there's no one here, it looks like a caged guard dogs room; only all the cages are empty now. Many have holes in them, chewed straight through the mesh, flesh between the wires. She doesn't know what is going on, what would make a dog do something like that? Then again, she doesn't even know her name or why she's there._

_She cautiously makes her way down the corridor. But suddenly she stops. Something is not right there, she can feel it, even smell it... she can feel that she isn´t alone anymore._

_She sharpens her senses, and then she hears it. A sharp clicking sound. Nails on a cement floor._

_Tud, tud, tud, tud, tud..._

_In the shadows, a dark shape is moving towards her with a low demonic growl. She tries to move backwards, but the Doberman advances into a shaft of light. _

"_Doggie" She mutters to herself._

_But this thing is like no dog she have seen before. Its eyes are glazed, and its flesh decaying, like dead flesh. Like a standing dead doggie._

"_Oh hell…."_

_The dog charges and she does the only sensible thing. She runs, but the dog leaps at her, all teeth and claws. She dodges and then a scream breaks the silent._

"_ALICEEEE!" -_

It's sunny outside; she can see it through the window of the boat bunk room. Giancarlo is hunched over a desk, with a flashlight and the tweezers on his hands, busy working with a plastic tube.

She stretched looking down at the bandage around her stomach. Still dizzy because of the dream, she's trying to sit up, and it really hurt her like hell, but she doesn't pay attention to it. That dream, was all over her mind, it was so real, almost like a memory, she was not entirely sure about it but it really felt like it was a memory from her past, a really weird one. That dog... And then it was the yell, almost like a cry, Alice, was it her name? It didn't sound strange but not entirely familiar.

Alice… it was her name.

She stares around the room, at her body again, the walls, the desk, Giancarlo.

"You're awake" He says still working at that tube.

"I think my name is Alice" she slowly stars with a sleepy voice. "But that's all I know… What if it doesn't come back?"

"You have remembered your name in your sleep" Still not looking at her. "You need to rest more.

Alice can´t sleep, she needs to remember things, she's trying to make sense of all this. Then she turns to see what Giancarlo is doing with that tube.

"What are you doing?" She says with a more firm voice, but still raspy.

Giancarlo was ignoring her, still absorbed in the tube. He only looked up to find a magnifying glass.

"What is that?"

"It came from your hip. Under the skin, take a look at it"

It was a piece of paper inserted on the plastic tube. Written there _- - 00-7-17-12-0-14-26- - GEMEINSCHAFT BANK, ZURICH._

"You remember Zurich?"

* * *

It was the second night on the boat when the captain of the ship introduced himself to Alice. She was still with Giancarlo at the bunk room when the captain walked in. He was a man in his 40s, tall, muscular and rude.

"Captain Wyss" he said, extending a hand that she did not accepted. "I'm glad you made it miss… miss"

"Alice… just Alice" she said and it came in a rude way.

"She's suffering from memory loss" Giancarlo was at her side. "The only thing she can remember is her name"

"Alice..." The captain said. She did not know him, but his voice and his horrible smirk were almost like a slap in her face. "Within a week we'll be passing by a port by the Italian coastline… I see that your health has been improving, so I think you should disembark when we get there…

She just nodded at him, ignoring his predatory stare, she really didn't liked him a little bit, he was watching her like he wanted to grab her and touch everything up within her soul. However, the Giancarlo incident the night before; the attack from the unknown woman that didn't look like she was over 25, had been spread all over the ship and the crew had a certain respect for her. This, combined with the fear of having a woman on board, a woman who had come to them almost dead in a windy night, was enough for the crew to settle down.

So all that the captain did was run lascivious looks all around her body when she was around which were noticed by Giancarlo who never left the woman alone in a fatherly way to protect her. During that week, no other memory or dream came back to her; it was stressful and made her feel lost. However, many things happened during that week, things that began to worry both Giancarlo and Alice about her true identity and what actually happened to the woman at such a young age.

On the third day of being on the boat, Alice was feeling increasingly strong, even Giancarlo said her wounds were healing remarkably fast. So, ever since that night, and each day when she was alone, she would start to do sit-ups and push-up on the deck rail. She was still bandaged and felt a little pain on her back but she was pushing herself; somehow wanting to get an answer about her past, hoping that the pain would remind her something.

One day being in the kitchen with Giancarlo, she found a pretty old coffee machine, the old man said it was beyond repair, that it was pure garbage and had to get rid of it when touched port, but then it became a test for her, like she needed to show she could fix it, none of the sailors paid much attention to what she did with the old machine but after several agile movements with her hands, the coffee was working properly again.

A chess board. One of the Italian sailors had a wooden chess with small pieces. Lorenzo was his name, and he was playing with another sailor, Robyr; a rather unpleasant man, while Alice was aware of every move from afar. Apparently Robyr wanted to play a though man, and challenged her to a game. She hesitates, all pieces on board, Robyr make a first move, and she takes a black knight and lingers for a moment. She knows this. Ten moves later, Robyr cannot believe he just lost to a 20 years old girl.

Another day, in the bathroom, one of the ugliest bathrooms on the planet, she stops in front of an old mirror. Stares at her own naked body, touches it, it is all strange to her, and she doesn't know who she is. But then she speaks.

(In perfect French) "I don't know who I am"

(In perfect Dutch) "Do you know who I am?"

(Now Chinese) "Do you have any idea who I am?"

And then she stops. This is not helping her in anyway. She blinks.

(Perfect Italian) "I don't know who I am"

* * *

"_You know the consequences of this, don't you?" A man says at her back. "You know that there's no turning back Corporal Abernathy"_

_She only nods, this man, she can't see his face and she really can't remember his name, it doesn't matter anyway, she just want to get rid of him._

"_I know what I'm up to… sir" She says. That's the only response he needs to hear._

"_Good…" The man says then she can hear another pair of footsteps approaching behind him._

"_Dr. Isaacs, subject one is ready"_

_And then everything is black._

"_What the…?" Panic. Is she really doing this? Will it be worth?_

"_Don't fight it" A man says. "We have to blindfold you my dear, it's for our own safety._

_She tries to loosen the tie, a little fear courses through her body, she really never thought that the procedure would be as rudimentary as this._

"_Relax…." and then she can feel a prick of a syringe in her arm._

_Everything becomes blurry._

* * *

The Trawler is moving along with the small and gentle waves. Its dawn and a small, colorful fishing village can be seen from the deck. Inside of the boat bunk room Alice is buttoning up a borrowed sweater, she just woke up from another dream/memory. Giancarlo is pulling some cash from his pocket.

"Here" he says offering the money to the tall blonde. "It's not much, but it should get you to Switzerland, and you really need to find some clothes.

Alice smiles, the first real small in the whole week. Giancarlo feels a warm feeling on his heart. After all, this girl could be one of his daughters. And he's disheartened, aware that this woman has gone and will go through many things, things that his own children will never have to.

"I won't forget this Giancarlo" She says with hey usual husky voice, but this time is full with emotion. "Thank you so very much"

And with that she leaves the boat.

She easily find a small store, where she provides herself with a pair of fitting jeans, winter boots and gloves; and another t-shirt, she have been using one from Antoine, the thinnest sailor. Then she goes to the pokey Italian train station, she don't even have to find a map, since apparently she knows the place.

"I cannot even remember where I grew up, but I know this place like a palm of my hand" she says quietly.

"Una sola via?" says the ticket agent as she reach the ticket window.

"Si. One way. Una sola via" She says smiling.

* * *

Almost 3 hundred miles away. At the Umbrella headquarters conference room. A video monitor turns on. Full frame, and man with slicked-back blond hair and sunglasses can be seen on the screen.

"We have a serious problem," one present in the room starts talking "Project 1, known as Project Alice was lost in the Italian coast near Vietri"

The man on the screen makes a snap of disgust in his throat, which makes the rest of them cower in fear.

"It was lost?" His voice is deep and when he talks he does not leave much space between each word. "What do you mean by that was lost?"

"The last time we had contact with the Survivor Team was when it left the complex in the Arklay Mountains" Another man started talking. "There was no further communication with them since then."

"And you waited 8 days to tell me?" His voice was livid.

"Such incidents are very…common, sir ... we think ..."

"I do not want to hear your pathetic excuses Piers ..." the man interrupted. "This problem must be solved with the UBCS"

Twelve Umbrella agents are sitting around the table like kids in detention. They all look concerned with the mere mention of the division, the Umbrella Biohazard Countermeasure Service.

"What do you mean by…"

"We all know what happened two weeks ago in The Hive facility, the priority now is to manage the contention with caution, I'm going to send a UBCS Preventive Team to the Mansion and you…. find the Alice project immediately. Wesker off"

And with that, the screen went black.

"Get me the CIA, DSO, M16 and INTERPOL" One of the men says, the fist one who spoke. "Birkin, Ginovaef,

Nivans… We're going to Zurich Facility…get ready"

* * *

It was night, and Alice has just enough money to buy a cold slice of pizza at the train station in Zurich. She's walking aimlessly. She'll have to wait to visit the bank. She finds a bench near the exit of the station, and now is trying to get comfortable in it. It's chilly but this will have to do until morning.

"Can't you read the sign?" A voice in German.

She opens her eyes. It's a Zurich Cop. She turns in her spot, two Zurich Cops are coming towards her.

"On your feet. Right now" Cop #1

Alice is standing now, some kind of electricity running all over her body. They're on top of her now.

"You can't sleep here" Cop #2

Cop # 1 points to her face with the flashlight, watching her very unfriendly.

"Let's see some identification"

_Shit._

Not sure what to do, she moves uncomfortable, eyes moving. Mouth shut.

"Your papers ma'am. Come on"

"I…. I've lost them"

She's not panicking, the electricity she's feeling in her body is keeping her peaceful.

"My papers. They are lost" She says in German.

The cops exchange a look between them. She knows they will not believe anything she'll tell them.

"Ok. Let's go ma'am. Put your hands up" Cop #1, not sympathetic at all.

From the corner of her eye she notices that the Cop #2 is pulling his nightstick.

Blood begins to boil inside of her.

"Come on… hands up… UP!" he's demanding with a rude voice.

She's raising her hands slowly; meanwhile the Cop#1 is reaching up to pat her down.

"Look, I'm just trying to sleep, ok? I just need to sleep"

But that's enough for Cop #2, he has heard enough. With a sudden move, he's giving a sharp poke with the nightstick into Alice's back, and that's the last thing he'll remember…

Alice is in motion now, hitting the man with just a single turn, a spinning, catching Cop #2 completely off guard. The heel of her hand smacks into the guy's throat throwing him down the floor.

Cop #1 has more time to compose himself from the shock; he positions himself behind the blonde girl trying to reach for his pistol, but Alice, still turning and all her weight moving in a single fluid attack, sweeps a kicks on his chest and he's falling, trying to fight back but the blonde, like a machine unbelievably fast, throws three jackhammer punches down. With a thud his head slammed into the bench, blood spraying from his nose.

The Cop#2, still on the ground, is gasping for air. He glances at his partner on the floor and tries to draw his gun too, struggling with his holster. There's panic in his eyes. But the blonde is much faster than him and her foot, down onto Cop #2's arm, shattering the bone, prevents him to aim.

Cop #2 wants to scream but then he realizes the woman, with a fucking fast move, got his pistol, pointing right up against his forehead.

"Please…" Gasping, pleading. "Don't…. Please, God no…

Alice slams the gun against his temple and the fight is over.

She's standing there, in silence, with two unconscious cops at her feet, and there's blood on her pants.

What just happened? How did she do this? She looks at her hand, the gun is still there and God, it just feels so natural, holding it, aiming it, stripping it down, like this is something she's done a million times before.

_I'm a motherfucker badass._

This is something she definitely know how to do.

And then she stops cold, throwing down the gun, running off into the darkness.


	2. Comfortably Numb

A/N 1: Bloody Hell! I never thought I would get feedback during the first two days, or followers and favorites :O but I'm thrilled! Thank you! It's so good to know I did not write something so bad! Ok, my idea is to publish every time I finish a chapter, this would be every 10 days (maybe less) because I have a lot of studying and I have to train every day. But I'll try to overtake in every spare moment. I am posting another chapter just because I want Claire to appear xD uhm so well thanks again!

A/N2: Just so you know, the title of each chapter is named after songs I like. Not necessarily going to have a connection with the argument but hey, just wanted to do that because I'm strange fucker xD so if anyone is interested in knowing the songs, just ask.

Disclaimer: Same as the chapter 1. (I'm lazy)

Review: At the bottom.

A/N3: I don't have a beta, so if something is wrong (vocabulary, grammar) please let me know :)

* * *

**2. Comfortably Numb**

Gemeinschaft Bank.

Two guards unlocks the doors as Alice walks in. She squints, concerned about the incident last night, but none of them seem to recognize her. Inside the bank, the place is elegant, big room, clean, no windows, Barroco style and completely brilliant floor; this makes her feel badly dressed.

There are two lines, one for special costumers, and another for the rest. She's not sure whether or not she is a "special" costumer, so she goes for the line on the right, behind two men

She's standing there trying to think. What's she gonna say? What can she say?

A redhead is in the front line talking to the cashier; Alice can hear the heated conversation.

"No, this is not my current address. It was two months ago, when my grandfather was alive, but then I had to leave the place because of... problems in his Will…."

She couldn't see her face, only her back and her long red hair.

She was talking with big energy, real beauty hidden beneath that armor, and armor it is, because she was a warrior in full, crisis battle mode.

"….and so now I lost my apartment, my workplace, I have no money and you keep telling me how much you cannot help me with this"

The bank clerk, behind the cubicle was watching the redhead like a deer caught by the lights of a car.

"Miss Redfield… I'm gonna have to ask you to keep your voice down"

"All the papers… all the papers they asked for… I brought all the papers…" She looks incredulous. "Listen, the workshop is in the name of my grandfather, I work there"

The two men standing in front of Alice seem to be desperate.

"Excuse me miss but ..."

"Please listen, in his Will, my grandfather says that the workshop and the bank account are in my name! Now I come here and the Will appears with the name of my brother! Who doesn't even live in the country and the one I haven't seen for almost 5 years"

"Miss, I really understand your problem, but we cannot do anything, it is bank policy not to disclose such information to outsiders ..."

"I'm not an outsider! This is my grandfather that we are talking about…"

Alice was so fully into the conversation of the redhead that she hardly realized when the clerk in the left cubicle waved at her. The two men in front of the line livid.

She moves to the line of special customers.

"Can I help you?" says the woman.

Alice stands before her. Looking very out of place.

"Uhm… yeah, I'm here about a number account"

The woman just nods and pulls a pen and a bank card.

"If you'll just enter you account number here I'll direct you to the appropriate officer"

She takes the pen and writes the account number. Then she gives the bank card back to the clerk.

"That's it miss…. Now please come with me to this hall"

The woman takes her to a security check point where two guards, huge and serious, stand by a bio-metric scanner. A piece of ultra-tech amidst the Barroco. She feels nervous, but at the outside she's got a poker face.

Alice stays there; starring down at this machine. There's something ominously decisive about this. What if it's her? What if it's not?

A memory crosses her mind _"There's no turning back"_ and a shiver ran down her spine. Then the right guard speaks, both guards have been waiting for some reaction from the woman but she's only looking at the machine.

"Your hand, miss ..."

Alice focuses.

The bank guard # 2 helps her, guiding her palms on the scanning surface. A wave of white light passes under her hand.

"Please follow me" the bank guard # 1 says. Apparently all went well; no one is pulling her face to the floor saying she has the right to remain silent.

The guard leads to another hallway. Right, Left, Left, Right. Somehow her super advanced brain can memorize and analyze her surroundings; she is ready to escape if needed.

The guard takes her to a door, where another man, whole sack dress, awaits. Mr. Apfel, Alice read his name badge that is in his coat.

What now?

"Good morning miss. I assume you're here about your box."

The box?

"Yes... the box."

The man just nods and gestures down the corridor.

And there it is: a bank safety deposit viewing room. Sterile and kind of odd, but total privacy. She just sits there, as a deposit guard places a large safety deposit box before her. The guard leaves the room, closing the door behind him.

"So here it is" She says, right in front of her, all the answers.

She lifts the lid.

There's a shallow tray on top. In this tray: a beat-up passport in the name of Alice Abernathy. A French driver's license with a Parisian address. Credit cards for A. Abernathy.

She holds these objects close, as if by holding them her memory will be back. But that's her, her picture. There it is, she really is Alice Abernathy, butthen again she knows nothing about her past, and those dreams/memories did not help at all.

"My name is Alice Abernathy. I live at 121, Rue de la Jardin, Paris." Her voice is raspy as always. "Nice to meet you… Alice."

She turns back to the box, the shallow tray on top. There's Kleenex, several sets of contact lenses, foundation, red lipstick, a knife, a comb. Three sticks of gum, and a pair of sunglasses.

She puts those things aside, lifting the top tray. Staring into the deep bottom tray…

"Oh Hell…."

Money, lots of it. Ten thousand dollar, stacks of of them. Close to a million dollars.

And then there's a gun, and a very good one, with several clips of ammo. And behind them, six more passports. All clean and brand new. All with her photo inside. Six different names, five different Countries: Two Dutch passports, a French one, a South African, a Belgian and an American one.

* * *

Umbrella's Zurich Falicity.

It's a subterranean, inner office. A backwater project center hidden deep within the Lindenhof facility in the Zurich complex, disguised as a telecommunications company. There's a small staff, no more than 10 individuals, several technicians, one or two communications, a couple for research and 2 biqwigs. People are at their posts, and it's all quiet, they all are busy, looking for someone.

All of a sudden, an inhalation of surprise cuts the silence of the room.

"Sir!" says one of the technicians.

Now the man got the attention of the rest of the staff.

"She accessed the account"

Everyone is quiet.

"And you're sure it's her?" says a tall, burly man. He's one of the bigwig: Ozwell E. Spencer.

"Yes, sir. it's confirmed…"

Suddenly everything in the room becomes a riot.

* * *

She exist the bank, with a red bag full of all the things she found in the box, except the gun, she left it in the box not sure of what to do with it. She's walking briskly now, looking for a taxi, but finding none.

She crosses the street.

Damn.

There's a Zurich cop on the corner. She turns. Trying to look natural. And it's looking good for a moment but then two more cops are coming her way.

Cut. Cross the street.

She's heading down a boulevard. Trying to look small, her pulse is starting to race, fighting the paranoia.

"Where the hell is a cab?"

A Siren.

She turns back fast, but it's just an ambulance. She forces herself to focus and fuck…. there's a cop, Alice stops, and the cop is staring at her.

ALICE POV

_Don´t panic… don't panic… don't run… smile…stay small…act normal…_

She's scanning her options. There's an alley at her right, just around the corner.

_Get to that corner now!_

The cop is watching her go, and he is pulling his radio out. Alice hits the corner, forcing herself not no run, and glancing back every now and then, the cop is walking right behind her.

_Shit. Shit. Shit._

Then another cop comes out of nowhere, but this one is jogging. Looking for someone.

"Stop! ...stop right there!"

_You have to stay calm. Do it fast._

Two more cops join those who are behind her.

"YOU! ... red bag, stop right there!" says Cop #1

Alice stops dead. Though she is giving them her back she can sense they are approaching warily.

"Drop the bag" Cop#2, a woman.

Alice is glancing back; Cop #3 is raising his glock behind her.

"I SAID Drop the bag!"

She nods, still glancing back. She's starting to drop her bag, but only doing it as a distraction. In less than 2 seconds she's swinging the bag at the armed police.

The policeman is taken by surprise, the bag hitting him full in his face; this is enough for Alice to pull a kick to his head, directly to the temple's man. He's falling unconscious to the ground.

The other cops are above her in a moment, trying to corner her at the same time as they pull out their guns. But again Alice is faster, much faster.

Knee kick, punch to the jaw. Two more to go.

While Cop #1 falls unconscious to the ground she manages to grab the combat knife that is on his waistline. Cop #2 now is pointing at her with her gun.

She rolls and hurriedly approaches Cop#4 from behind, she pulls him around to shield her back, knife to her knee.

The other woman would not shoot at one of his comrades.

"Hold your fire" Alice's voice is strong and firm.

"Ok" the cop begins to lower her weapon "Ok, calm"

"Put the gun down, kick it over here"

The police do what the woman asks, suddenly Alice throws the knife at her, nailing her on one shoulder, a wound that is not lethal but will slow her.

Cop #4 also falls down with a blow to his temple, while Alice picks up the gun that has been kicked her. Before the police # 2 can respond, Alice is running down the street.

She still can hear the other woman's frantic words, yelled at her radio:

"This is Officer Krausser!... Red code… I repeat RED CODE, south side Boulevard, female suspect, blonde hair, black jacket, red bag!

She's moving fast, swinging around as she searches for a place to hide.

"She's got a gun!" Someone is screaming.

Now she's regretting about the gun in her hand, it is like a magic wand of hysteria. People in the street are screaming, running away.

She's sprinting down another street, tossing away the glock. She turns to her right; it's a crowded street, just the thing she needs to cover up. She's playing it as normal as possible as she moves along the people.

She can see that no one is following her.

Alice is bailing on the street, disappearing into the back of a huge building. She barely has time to think when a redhead steps out of the building.

CLAIRE POV

Claire is pissed off. How could they do this to her? She's storming away from the attorney's building. She's pissed off and almost broke.

"Motherfucking…sons of bitches!" she mumbles as she approaches her car.

A 68 black mustang. The only thing she's got left, a gift from her German grandfather, and now there was a big red Zurich parking ticker on the windshield.

"Oh you got to be shitting me!" Claire grabs the ticket, tearing it up, tearing the shit out of it, blind with misfortune.

She's throwing the pieces on the ground stomping on them and then she sees a pair of black boots near her car.

"What are you looking at?" and right after she talks with venom in her voice she lifts her gaze.

_Oh._

A stunning tall blonde is standing across her car, looking at her with a ghost of a smirk. And the first thing that Claire sees is a pair of piercing blue deep eyes, deeper than the ocean that stares at her own. She sees again at the smirk on her face, a very attractive smirk indeed but she's laughing at her, yeah, because of her childish actions with the parking ticket.

"What's your problem?" She says, getting angry again.

First the bank and the fucking lawyer, then the ticket, and now an attractive woman was amused by her actions. Almost laughing at her face! How about that?

"Nice car" the stranger says, and that voice, low, raspy and husky, send chills through Claire's body. That's enough; she needs to get out of there. She starts to look for her keys in her purse.

"I need a ride" Simple, to the point.

_What?_

Silence.

Claire is acting as if she had not heard. However, the words echoed in her head, making no sense at all.

"I need a ride out of here" Again that voice, filled with security.

And now Claire is reacting. She looks at the blonde.

"Oh, God…" Backing away.

"Please. I don't want to scare you"

"Well it's a little too late for that…"

"I've got a…. situation here and I…."

"Get the fuck away from my car!"

"I'll give you ten thousand dollars to drive me to Paris"

_Bullshit._

"Yeah? I'll give you ten gazillion dollars to get the fuck away from me before I start screaming my head of…"

The blonde was smirking. What? The fucking blonde was smirking, that friggin smug grin.

"You don't want the police any more than I do" She's pointing at the ticket with her eyes.

Then the blonde tosses cash, a stack of hundreds, across the car into Claire's hands, she catches it. She looks at it.

"Oh my God, you just rob a Bank!" Claire is flipping out. This day couldn't get any worse.

"Do you hear any siren?" The god dam blonde is just to calm. And Claire doesn't like it, it sets off all her alarms.

"What?"

"I said: Did you hear any siren?"

"I heard you the first time!.." She was losing it.

"I didn't rob the bank. In this country is almost impossible to rob a bank, there are no cops around and we both can't hear any siren, so the money I just gave to you… it's mine… well now it's yours… I just need a ride" There is something in her voice that sounds sincere.

_This is really messed up Red._

"I…"

"Get me out of here. Please"

Claire looks at her. At the money, and back at her, she no longer has the sufficient smirk on her face, now she looks like a scared child, frightened asking Claire for help.

"Get in the car"

_Jesus what am I doing?_

* * *

Umbrella Communications desk, Zurich.

A video is playing fast forward, a speeding blur of images from a satellite, the image is from the outside of the Zurich bank. It's one day worth of footage and there're scanning for Alice's arrival.

"Wait!...Stop, you went past it" Spencer says.

A tech man is working with the console. Freezing the image. There it is, Alice leaving the bank with a red bag.

Spencer is staring at the monitor.

"It's her?" A man named William Birkin says.

"Yes…"

"My God, it's really her…Spencer, we need to do something now, we need to prepare a cross-ref…"

"No, wait… let's see where she's going"

Birkin is not pleased.

"Go ahead, keep running it" Now Spencer is talking to the tech man.

The tech man start the console again, Spencer and Birkin are looking at every detail shown in the screen.

"Sir…" Its another tech man.

.

Both Spencer and Birkin are looking up from the console.

"What?"

"Zurich police is looking for an American woman with a red bag" Tech men #2 is saying slowly. "… Apparently he put two cops in the hospital last night…and"

"Six…"

All heads turn to the monitor; Alice is kicking the shit out of four other cops.

"Damn"

It's like the floor just fell away, so heavy.

"What the fuck is she doing?"

"Everybody! I want everybody active now!"

Now everybody in the room is freaking out, tech people trying to follow the girl, communicates calling other agencies.

"We've reach full live signal sir; she's running through the Fith Street."

"Don't lose her! Let's see where she's heading" Spencer is talking really fast. "Call Zurich Police Department. Force them to do nothing more on this. Tell them to withdraw…"

"Spencer what's going on?" Birkin again.

"It' doesn't matter now! Maybe it's a game, maybe she's trying to send us a message, I don't really know"

"She's heading to a crowded street"

"Don´t lose her!"

"She's moving really fast…. "

"Enhance the image…"

Alice is running fast, but then she stops at the back of a building. And...

"Who the hell is that?" Birkin is getting annoyed, this thing is getting messier.

Alice is talking with a redhead.

"Ok people, scan her face, and look for her. I want to know who she is and I what to know it now" Spencer now is yelling.

"What about project Alice, sir?"

"Let her go… Let's see were she's heading to with that girl…"

* * *

CLAIRE POV

Her black mustang is now parked on a road on the outskirts of Zurich. Claire is pacing around, while Alice is poring over a map spread out over the hood.

The blonde seems to be very solemn, Claire looks at her for a moment, the girl really is beautiful, but her face has lines of fatigue and worry.

_Strange_, she thinks, because the woman in front of her seems to walk the same age as the redhead. However, something about the way the blonde moves makes her look much older, experienced.

Suddenly the blonde looks up, with a raised eyebrow.

"Yes?" she says with a smile.

"Watch the paint" is the only thing that manages to say Claire. She was caught staring.

_Shit. Just get a grip Claire._

The blonde just half smiles and then continues exploring the map.

"So…" Claire starts. Her nerves just won't let her keep quiet "What's in Paris?"

Alice does not look up.

"I want to go home"

_Is she like E.T or something?_

"Yeah, for twenty thousand dollars…" Claire scoffs.

Now the blonde is looking at her, again with a smirk.

"I said ten…"

"You have blood on your pants"

"Ok…" The blonde sighs, now serious again. "Twenty thousand it is. Ten now and ten when we get there"

Claire panics again.

"No. No, that's just too easy" She's pacing away.

"I don't…."

"That's just so fucking easy Miss Cashy!" She's starting to yell.

"Hey…" Now the blonde has all her attention towards the redhead "Wait up…just wait up"

"Get the fuck out of here…."

ALICE POV

This chick really had bipolar problems. It all was like a roller coaster, she just went from easy going to a mad woman, screaming and saying the word "fuck" just too many times.

"All this money, this crazy offer…. I mean give me a fucking break with this, this is…." but she was stopped.

She was stopped by Alice, who just grabbed her. Both of them shocked that she's doing it. She immediately pulls back scared. That had felt good, in fact very good, and that's why she was now scared.

"Look, I want a ride to Paris. That's all I want, I swear"

"You swear?" Claire was looking at her coldly. Probably because of the previous reaction to the touch. "That's great, I feel so much better now." Sarcasm.

"I don't want anything but a ride. All I want to do is go home"

Silence.

Claire looks back, she's measuring the blonde girl.

"You could buy a car for twenty grand. You could buy this car."

She was right; then again Alice didn't want to do that.

"I don't want to go alone" It came out as a whisper. "I… I want you to drive me to Paris.

And that was the truth. She didn't wanted to be alone, because been only with herself was like been with another stranger.

_That doesn't even make any sense._

CLAIRE POV

_Holly Shit_

The blonde sounded sincere. But not all psychopaths sound sincere at first?

_I mean, she only just meets me and here she is saying she did not want to be without me? Wow well no, it was not like it…She just dont want to be alone. This shit is confusing._

"Ok so I'll drive you home. And I won't get hurt. I get twenty thousand dollars and I don't get hurt"

"I won't hurt you"

"What if I say no?"

"Then I'll find another ride."

* * *

Reviews:

poynton90: Billionths thanks :) This second chapter is for you my friend. You took away all my doubts; I was like "What if no one writes anything?" thank you really!

Avienda: Thanks n.n! And… shiiit you're putting a very high challenge for me S: now I'll have to break my head to keep up and surprise you in every chapter. And yes, I think I'm obsessed with this couple xD, it's just that after reading several Clarice FF I saw the movies again to see why there is so much fuss about them and yeah it doesn't looks like a bromance anymore to me! I don't know what to do with all this Aberfeels D: lol (this is me right now post/39685443807/throughout-re-extinction-and-afte rlife)

webminky: I'm glad ;) lol

fang-flames13: Confused about what? If you have any questions please let me know! If it's not a spoiler, I'll gladly answer it :). Hehe the story is a bit tangled, but in the end you will understand everything (I hope). And uhmm… expect more: "I'm a badass motherfucker!" stuff lol.


	3. 3 Kingdom of Tyrants

A/N1: I need to apologize, the second chapter had too many errors (my favorite one was the -buthen- typo XD). Also I found a caring soul who has been helping me correct and improve the history, so this chapter is better. Thanks Lifesaver ;)

A/N2: Thanks for the comments, favorites and all that jazz :3

Disclaimer: Same as chap1

* * *

**3. Kingdom Of Tyrants**

Since the incident on outskirts of Zurich they have not exchanged many words. Claire driving, Alice looking out of the window lost in thought. There was a long awkward silence until Claire spoke out.

"Just so you know, if you're gonna burn me on the money, you might as well kill me now."

Alice looks over, arching both eyebrows.

"I was supposed to have this car back three days ago. It's not my car, I mean, it is my car, but not any longer legally, I mean"

"I know that"

Claire looks at her with surprise, looking away from the road for a moment.

"What?"

"I said I..."

"I know what you just said. It's just that how in the hell…"

"Redfield! Look forward!"

Claire looks back at the road just in time to avoid an oncoming truck."Shit"

"Is that a favorite word of yours?" Alice smirked at her.

"Can I tell you how much you're freaking me out? Okay? Because you are! You're completely freaking me out."

"I'm sorry…"

"How do you even know my last name?"

"I heard you in the bank, when you were talking to the cashier, sorry. I didn't mean to listen; it's just that you were talking really loud."

Now Claire's face was taking on the same hue as her red hair.

"Well, yes."

"I'm sorry. Really. What do you want me to do? I mean, to stop freaking you out"

"I don't know. Smile. Sneeze. Something. You've got a bag full of money and want a ride to Paris. Fuck it, I don't know..."

There's the awkward silence again. Claire is thinking.

"What kind of music do you like?" It's a weird question but it'll do.

"I don't know" Alice says.

"You don't know?"

"Listen to what you want."

This woman was really putting Claire on edge; she was starting to get impatient again.

"Who pays twenty thousand dollars for a ride to Paris?" The words came out of nowhere.

"I don't know. I don't know who I am."

"Kind of cliché, isn't it?"

"No. No, I mean, I really don't know who I am. I can't remember anything before two weeks ago."

Claire's face told her she wasn't buying it.

"I'm serious."

"What do you mean? Like amnesia?"

"Look, go ahead, put the radio on"

Alice was beginning to feel uncomfortable. Knowing that the woman next to her was afraid of her wasn't helping. She didn't think it would be good to tell her about her problem. The redhead could throw her out of the car at any time.

"Amnesia? You're saying you REALLY don't remember anything that happened before two weeks ago?" Claire was incredulous.

"That's what I'm saying"

"Give me a fucking break" She says in German. "I need a smoke".

Claire pulled off the road, removed her seat belt and got out leaving a confused Alice behind.

"Do you even know your name?" Claire asked as she lit her cigarette.

"I'm Alice. Alice Abernathy" She said as she got out of the car. "That's all I know"

"Incredible" The redhead said, the cigarette dangling from her right hand. "Want a smoke?"

Alice nods; she takes the cigarette from Claire's fingers, and inhales. The nicotine hit her lungs and she starts to cough, then choke, she's choking.

"I….I… Jesus I think I don't smoke" She tries desperately to recover herself while feeling silly.

"Yeah, I can see that"

Claire is laughing, watching as the other woman attempts to compose herself. It is an infectious laugh, and soon the blonde begins to laugh with her. When the laughter dies down, they look at each other.

"I'm Claire by the way"

They smile at each other.

"Nice to formally meet you, Claire Redfield"

They share another smile before Alice frowns.

"I… I'm hungry."

Claire just rolls her eyes before getting into the drivers seat again.

* * *

**Umbrella Communications desk. Zurich.**

Claire's face, her passport photo, is on the big screen. Spencer is behind his desk, Birkin is staring grimly at the picture of the redhead.

"So who is she?"

Birkin begins to open a folder, looking into its contents, scanning.

"Claire Helene Redfield. She's twenty-two. Born in California. Moved to Zurich when she was 11, uhm let me see…her father was a welder, died in 88, no info about the mother. She was living with her grandfather, who died two weeks ago. She works at her grandfather workshop, she's a mechanic."

"No political affiliations?"

"None found"

"Jail?"

"No."

"Keep reading."

"Her brother's name is Chris Redfield, uhm currently living in… Oh Christ."

Birkin can't believe what he's reading. He lifted his gaze from the folder, looking terrified.

"What's wrong?"

"Her brother, Chris Redfield, he's currently working at the S.T.A.R.S division ... at Raccoon City."

Both men look at each other with concern.

"Do you think they are trying to bring the corporation down?"

"It's impossible, nobody knows about this Raccoon City event"

"Still…"

"What? It's impossible that this woman has had contact with her brother meanwhile the city's being destroyed by those monsters. A technician would have noticed it, all networks are being monitored"

"Spencer, you have to agree with me this time. This thing is getting out of hand! Wesker is too busy doing… whatever stupid secret with the T-Virus… the rest of the board is too scared of him to even leave the complex, it´s impossible contact the Top Head and all the company forces are being used to contain this ridiculous accident in The Hive."

"What's your point?" Spencer is now paying attention.

"My point here is that we are not giving enough attention to this woman and her "new" friend, we don't know what she's trying to do, but it seems to me that she's trying to rock our ship, she knows too much. I won't feel calm until we've got this Project One under our command."

Spencer is thinking, he's tired, Birkin can see this; he's wondering how long the other man has been working without touching a bed.

"Call Hunk" Spencer says.

Birkin is pleased, a smirk is beginning to widen on his lips.

"Call Hunk and send both pictures"

The smirk fades.

"Wait, I never said that… We can´t just eliminate this Project because it's damaged."

"You said this is getting out of hand, and with that I agree, but this Project has given me enough trouble and I want it to be eliminated."

"We should talk with Wesker first"

"No, I will not discuss this."

* * *

Its night, they have parked in a small restaurant on the way. Both are sitting at a table near the door, avoiding closeness with other tables and the people at the bar. Alice has the red bag on the table, after they order some food she stars to show its contents to the redhead. Claire is looking at her incredulously, her whole attention on Alice.

"So you have no idea? Not a clue what came before that?" Claire is looking at her sadly.

"No." It came out as a whisper.

"When you think of it, before the ship, what do you see?"

"Just fragments of memories, nothing coherent, I kept trying things; I thought if I could find all the things I could do, I could put it all together"

"But it's not working?" She asks but it sounds more like a statement.

"No, I mean a bit… I was ok for a while with it but now… this is confusing"

"What you mean?"

Alice is not sure if it's a good idea to tell the redhead about her skills. She's hesitating.

"Hey I won't run away. At this point, you should be able to trust me." Claire is smiling at her. "I mean look at me! I'm the one who trusted you from the beginning with, giving you a ride and stuff"

Alice knows she's right.

"I was ok for a while, but then, there are all these other things I know how to do I think something happened to me, when they found me, in the water, I'd been shot twice."

"Ok, so you're a victim?"

"I don't think so." Alice was completely serious now. "There was a gun at my box in the bank, and all this money and passports. I fought my way out the bank; I know how to handle a gun."

"People can do amazing things when they're scared."

"I was not scared."

"So what you're saying is that…?"

"I come in here, instinctively the first thing I do is look for the exits. I can tell you the license plate numbers of all three cars out front. I can tell you that the waitress is left-handed and the guy at the counter weighs two-hundred and fifteen pounds and knows how to handle himself."

Claire is paying attention to everything the blonde is saying.

"I know that the best place to look for a gun is the cab of that grey truck outside. I know that at this altitude I can run flat out for half a mile before I lose my edge. I knew that you were my first, best option out of Zurich. How do I know all that? How can I know all that and not know who I am? How is that possible?"

At that moment the waitress came over with the food, however, neither of the women paid any attention to her. Claire was watching Alice carefully, thinking.

"God." She let out a long sigh "You're really not kidding, are you?"

* * *

**A Street in Rome.**

An English man is walking with broad strides down a busy sidewalk, ignoring his surroundings. This man is known by the name of Hunk, just like that. He's thirty-five, slender, clean-cut and easy to miss. His phone starts pulsing, without stopping he pulls it out of his pocket.

Two photos, two targets, easy money.

He puts his phone back into his pocket. Now he's heading to the street, looking for a cab. He's got a job and it should be done in less than 48 hours.

* * *

CLAIRE POV

The two women are still sitting at the table in the small restaurant. Claire has finished eating; her companion however is now eating her second order of fries.

"You weren't kidding when you said you were hungry, right?" Claire asks with a smirk and Alice just nods, gulping the fries down.

Claire is looking around, she's not analyzing every detail as the blonde did, but she's trying to recognize the most important things, just to be safe, something her brother, Chris, had taught her from an early age.

Her attention is captured by the television screen just a few meters away from their table; a brunette in her 30s is giving the latest news. Claire pays attention, sharpening her ears to catch the audio of the device.

_"On the international news, the bizarre killings in the small town of Raccoon City, USA have spread to the edges of the city, the number of victims found around the city have been increasing by the hour since the…_

_Jesus,_ Claire thinks.

_"... the police have not managed to find the person or persons responsible but our source says they believe it to be the work of a serial killer. We can only wonder at the mental state of any involved. We're joined now, live from the Raven Bridge. Tony can you hear me?..."_

The screen changes, now instead of watching the brunette, Claire can see a big man with a dense mustache; his name is Barry Burton as identified in the telecasts.

_"The killings started this morning, we found the bodies of a few campers who were vacationing near the forest, both completely shattered, at first we thought it was due to the bears that abound around the forest, however a specialist reported that the bite marks were not animals, but human ..."_

_What the hell?._Claire is now looking around for a volume control.

_"What do you mean by human bites?"_ The man holding the microphone is now visible on the screen of television.

"_Well, apparently we are facing a case of cannibalism my friend." _Barry Burton continues, shrugging his large shoulders. _"After we found these bodies in the woods we got a call that another body with the same conditions had been found next to a gasoline transport truck on the outskirts of the forest. We were trying to focus on one area when another call reached the base, a man with torn clothes and blood on his jaw was seen by the edge of the forest, but he disappeared a few meters away. We've sent a special team to investigate the forest; however as of three hours ago, we've lost communication with them"_

_"Will you send another team to investigate?"_ The reporter asked.

_"Negative, the team we sent is the fittest and best prepared for this type of case, chances are the problem is a communication failure, nothing serious. The S.T.A.R.S. team .. "_

Claire gasps.

"What is it?" Alice has looked up from her plate of food.

"Look ..." is all that Claire manages to say. Both watch the television. A pale-skinned blond man can be seen on the screen.

_"The Umbrella Corporation has sent a containment team to help decipher what is happening and to support the Raccoon City Police Department as the chaos in the streets by the citizens is quite alarming, we are joined now with Major Cain, a senior operative of the Umbrella Corporation, who will explain a little of what is happening..."_

"What's the problem? Alice says.

"That thing is happening in Raccoon City. My brother works there, he is part of a special team of police, the S.T.A.R.S, that cop just said that my brother's unit was sent to investigate those murders in the forest but they've lost contact with them"

Claire's worry is tempered by the fact that she knows her brother can take care of himself very well, yet she cannot help feeling scared, Chris is tough, but with these cases she always thinks the worst.

_"The Umbrella Corporation is committed to keep Raccoon's citizens safe from this situation, but we don't believe that the actions that have been taken by some of the citizens are in anybody's best interest, people must be calm, there's no need to panic…"_

The camera focuses on a business being torn apart by frenzied mob, a market being destroyed by people screaming; pulling food cans out in panic.

_"Whatever is going on, whatever needs to be done, we will find the solution and people can be at peace in a few hours ..."_

"Ugh ..." Claire can't stand to look at the stupid Umbrella man.

Alice looked over."What?"

"Umbrella Corporation, I just don't trust them"

"Who are they?"

Claire looks at her blankly.

"Umbrella Corp? Are you ser….? Oh right, amnesia, I just forget for a moment that you remember nothing….uhm Umbrella is a huge international company that sells medical stuff, pharmaceutical merchandise and well cosmetics; you know things like that. But I don't know, they've always given me a bad feeling, as if they are concealing something bigger. It's just that Umbrella people always have this air of superiority, like they know better, you know? I'm not the only one who believes this though. A few months ago there was a strike at one of its facilities, the crowd went crazy."

"I don't know why, but this Umbrella Corp sounds familiar to me"

"Well it has to be, I mean it's a really big deal, everybody knows they exist"

Alice looks disappointed.

_Shit. _Claire thinks. She sounded like a bitch.

"Or…maybe your memory is coming back, maybe things like hearing about Umbrella trigger something in your mind" She's trying to cheer her up. "It'll come around in time, I'm sure." Claire smiles.

"I hope so." She's not completely sure and Claire can see it in her eyes. "Thanks."

They look at each other smiling. Claire finds herself staring at the other woman for longer than necessary. Her smile, and the way her eyes sparkle when she's smiling is very attractive to her. She's so attracted to her.

She truly is beautiful. Really beautiful.

_I'm starring at her, stop it, stop it, stop it! Stop It!_

Alice raises an eyebrow suggestively, smirking and Claire looks away mortified.

_Jesus she's hot…_

"So, a pharmaceutical company that has a military unit?" Alice asked, trying to dissipate the awkwardness. "It's a bit strange, isn't it?" She asked.

Claire breathes an internal sigh of relief, thanking all the Gods. "Exactly… supposedly one of the reasons is because they have shares in several companies of different natures, security, that kind of thing, but if you ask me, that sounds like bullshit."

Alice snorts. "I'm full; we should get back on the road"

Claire just nods; she's starting to get up when a hand stops her.

"Don't worry about your brother. We'll find a way to get in contact with him once we get to Paris, ok?"

Claire can't help but smile broadly, trying to ignore the feeling she gets from the the touch of the blonde.

Hunk has reached his destination, a warehouse located on the outskirts of a speakeasy, where no one dares to look and few come close.

He gets off his bike and pulls out some keys; he turns to a gate and quickly eases it open.

It's an elevator, everything is dark but he knows where he's going. Leaving the lights out, he reaches and hits the up button. The elevator begins to slowly ascend.

* * *

**Umbrella headquarters conference room. Zurich**

Wesker walks patiently around the circular table at which six men are sitting, waiting.

"Now what are we supposed to do?" The man speaking is Spencer.

"The orders by the Head were clear; we do not intrude into the matter"

"But the cause of the spread was our fault!" Birkin is speaking. "Don't you think we should try to and contain the problem?"

"We cannot ignore the orders that have been sent from above Birkin." Wesker speaks slowly and precisely. The calm that he offers to his peers only serves to increase their agitation.

"There is nothing we can do now, we must simply wait."

"Wait?" Nivans is sweating and trembling, almost out of his mind "Wait? Wait for the infected to come to Europe? Wait to die like those people in The Hive? My God, what's wrong with you people? I just can't…."

The man is getting up from his chair, breathing heavily, almost in tears. The others are looking at him with caution, but Wesker remains calm.

"There must be some way to change this, we must ..."

The shot rang out across the room.

No one hears what Nivans think should be done; his body falls lifeless to the ground. Wesker is holding his gun up.

"Is there someone else who wants to discuss the issue?" His voice is cold, and may even contain a hint of amusement. "Good." He holsters his weapon.

"Dr. Isaacs is already working on creating an anti-virus serum" He continues talking like nothing happened. "This will take time, so the best thing we can do, is to stay out of this… issue. Everything that happens from now on with the virus around the globe is no longer our business. Our priority now is to keep the important people in the corporation alive and underground."

Everyone is silent, two men enter the room, holding the body of Nivans by the arms and dragging it out.

"What about Project One?" Birkin questions getting a look of disgust from Spencer.

"The Project One is an important asset for the company, change the instructions you sent earlier to Hunk, the girl can be eliminated, however I want our B.O.W alive."

"This… thing… woman… she's dangerous, she should be eliminated" Spencer is trying to stay calm.

"I beg to differ" Birkin is joining the argument. "Yes, she's dangerous and yes she's hiding something important under that facade of innocent girl, human…. whatever… she may be even working against the corporation but if so we will find out when we have her on our hands"

Spencer is pissed.

"Change Hunks orders" Wesker is talking to Birkin now, ignoring an angry Spencer. "Tell him to bring her as soon as possible be sure he doesn't miss her and Spencer ... That's an order.

* * *

**Hunk's Storage Unit.**

Hunk is moving fast, closing the door behind him, moving to a pile of books and taking the top book off, he opens it.

Inside the book there is a timer with a small bomb connected to it, a booby-trap. An L.E.D light stops flashing as he code in his password. He's moving to the corner, pulling away a pile of newspapers, hidden there, is a metal lock box.

Hunk takes off his watch, wallet, empties his pockets and places all of it into the empty tray on top of the box. He lifts the tray up, setting it aside revealing a much larger bottom compartment. Hunk pulls out stacks of money, a handgun, a dozen clips of ammo and a passport.

Suddenly his cell phone starts to vibrate again, the orders have been changed, there is now a single target and an extraction. For this he'll need more advanced equipment. Quickly he locks his belongings and heads for the exit, before continuing with this mission he must make a stop at the Umbrella facility.

* * *

ALICE POV

It's a beautiful sunny morning; Claire's Mustang is parked at the side of the road. Inside Alice is sitting in the passenger's seat, fully asleep. Nestled there.

Suddenly she violently wakes up, she's frightened at first and she's trying to adapt to her surroundings. First thing she looks for is her red bag; she sees it at her feet. Now she's looking around, looking for her companion, she begins to panic again.

"Claire?" Her voice has a tone of fear.

_Damn! Where is she?_

"Hey!" Suddenly the redhead's face appears at the window of the driver's side. Claire is smiling. She's got a sandwich, a soda and she's smoking from fresh pack of cigarretes. Same clothes, but her make-up's been washed away. She looks clean. Simple. Gorgeous.

Alice let out the breath that she was apparently holding, bringing her pulse back to normal. She's closed her eyes.

"Where were you? You scared me." The words come out harsher than she intended.

Claire is looking puzzled.

"Uhm ... I needed a break."

_Right. Stupid Alice, the poor girl has been driving all night and now you're bitching because she needed some rest. Stupid, stupid._

She steps out.

"Where are we?" She says with a yawn.

"We're about an hour away" Claire snaps, has a bit of resentment.

"Look, I'm sorry, I was scared; I thought something bad had happened to you. I can't believe I fell asleep."

"It's ok, you were tired. Here." Claire reaches into a paper bag, inside is another sandwich and a soda. "For twenty-thousand I like to throw in breakfast. So what do you dream about? "

Alice opens the bag and begins to eat her breakfast.

"Why do you ask?" She says.

"Uhm ... you were moaning a little, I thought it best not to wake you up..."

_Moaning? What the…?_

"I dream that I'm asleep. I dream that I'm asleep and I can't wake up." Another silence. Claire's watching her. "That doesn't even make sense, does it?"

Claire smiles at her."Not really, no"

Alice smiles a little. "No, I guess not."

"Do you ever think maybe you have a family?"

Alice is looking to the horizon, not sure how to answer.

"I thought about it. I don't know."

Claire looks away. Wondering what she was hoping for.

"We should return to the road, I've rested enough and want to get to Paris as quickly as possible, I tried to find news about what is happening in Raccoon but nothing new so far"

* * *

**Umbrella's Langley facility**

A blond man with glasses is walking down a corridor. His face shows no sign of emotion; however, the man is concerned.

He enters a dark office, and goes to a desk. From one of the drawers he pulls out a pair of sheets and a ballpoint. He sits at the table, staring at the blank pages for a minute then he begins to write:

_My name is Albert Wesker_

_I aspired to be one of the principal investigators of the Umbrella corporation; a major international player in pharmaceutical goods and medical supplies along with the more clandestine operations that utilized genetic engineering and secret research of bio-organic weapons known as B.O.W. After World War II, a scientist, by the name of Charles Ashford developed a unique virus, the T-Virus__, a compound capable of binding toward cells to prevent aging and improve cellular regeneration._

_Umbrella was planning to create the perfect soldier. In 1997 I became the leader of the UBCS unit, an__ Umbrella subsidiary, a private military company with a highly trained security force capable of rescue and reconnaissance paramilitary operations and top-secret situations._

_On April 9, 2001, Dr. Ashford managed to combine the T-Virus in a human host without creating alterations or mutations in its structure. He called it Project One. He had tried to create such unions in the past, but all projects had failed, the T-Virus was so strong it created massive mutations on the host and they all became, different. There was however, an accident. It occurred in one of the laboratories containing the virus. An intruder sneaked inside the complex, causing an alert on the defense system of the facility. The way in which the accident occurred is unknown, we only know that as the intruder tried to escape he was stopped by the internal defense system, an artificial intelligence known as The Red Queen. The virus he was trying to steal suffered complications inside its structural code and passed from liquid to gas within seconds, infecting all base personnel. The Red Queen took drastic and lethal measures that day, to prevent the spread of the infection. A group of survivors managed to leave the place in a cargo plane, along with a dazed Project One. The plane disappeared and was never recovered._

_On April 17, the bizarre murders began occurring in the forest of Raccoon City, near to the Arklay Mountains, where the Mansion and The Hive synthesized and used the virus. The mansion was Umbrella's secret lab, and clearly the T-virus was the cause. The city police sent its expert group, the S.T.A.R.S, to investigate. Initially, Umbrella instructed me to keep away from the group and not interfere, in order to allow us to obtain a comprehensive portrait of the BOW's combat abilities against the highly trained S.T.A.R.S, but everything spiraled out of control, so I sent a UBCS group to the scene. They too failed to contain the infection._

_Soon the T-virus spread, thanks to rats throughout Raccoon City, and Umbrella USA had to face the situation. The good citizens died, but due to the regenerative nature of the virus, their bodies were reanimated, void of though and emotion. Their one objective: to feed. People were not match against those creatures. In the chaos, Umbrella put Major Cain in charge, a man quite stupid and ignorant that did not comply with the directions, the order given was simple, nothing comes out of Raccoon, however a group of survivors were trying to escape._

_From the highest echelons of the corporation, Umbrella Europe sent a new type of B.O.W, called "The Nemesis". Nemesis's job was to pursue and eliminate the S.T.A.R.S officer Jill Valentine and the other survivors that were trying to flee with her. This would give our organization more data on the fight capabilities of the Nemesis. When Nemesis was destroyed by Jill Valentine, Major Cain chose the easier exit, sending a bomb that killed not only most of the walking infected, but more than a quarter of the staff of the corporation, stupid man. Now, the virus continues to expand around America, soon it'll invade the other side of the world._


	4. 4 Good Night and Good Body

A/N: Hello everyone! So here's chapter 4, thanks to my Lifesaver this has been fixed like a million times. Thanks dude :) I'm thrilled because aparently a lot of people enjoy my story, thanks for the rewiews it truly helps me to see what people thinks about the chap and thanks for the favs and follows too.

Disclaimer: Same :)

* * *

**4. Good Night and Good Body**

**Rue de la Jardin, Paris.**

The black car is moving slowly through the city, Claire is at the wheel while Alice is looking out the window, trying to identify the right building.

"Slow down. No, don't stop, just slow down." Alice says to the other woman.

"Did you find it?" Claire mutters still looking down the road.

"I think so, this is what the directions say, it must be this building"

Both look out, gazing out at a rather large building, elegant but cold.

"Look familiar?"

"Not at all." Alice sighed.

Claire continues to drive, Alice stares back at the building as they pass it.

"I'll try to find a place to park." Claire says and Alice just nods.

Claire is turning at an intersection, her eyes scanning, looking for a place to park the car. She angles into an alleyway and cuts the engine.

"So this is it, right?" She asks.

"I guess."

There is a dead pause. Claire is waiting while Alice is still scanning the street.

"I don't remember any of this."

"Alice I ..."

The blonde turns back, Claire is staring at her. Alice looks at her with her eyebrows raised, expecting before realization hits her.

"Oh! Sorry, the money right?" She says smiling apologetically.

Before Claire can say anything, the other woman is digging in the bag. She pulls out another stack of hundreds and hands it over. Claire takes it, this is not what she wanted, but she's used to being disappointed.

"Ok, so ..."

"Thanks for the ride."

"Anytime."

"Look, I know I said we could get in contact with your brother once we got here but the thing is don't know what's up there." Alice is looking up at the building.

"You got me pretty fucking curious."

"Yeah well… You could come up, or you could wait if you want, I could go check it out first, you could wait… then maybe we could, uhm, go find a phone or something. I mean, I've probably got a phone right?"

"Nah…"

Alice is trying to hide her disappointment. Apparently Claire manages to catch it.

"No, I mean, I'll come up with you." She laughs nervously. "You'd probably just forget about me if I stayed here, right?"

Now Alice is smiling happily. "How could I forget about you?" She starts. "You're the only person I know."

Claire smiles back, and Alice surprises herself when she realizes how fond of Claire's smile has become.

* * *

**Umbrella Corporation. Zurich. Upstairs hallway.**

Spencer and Birkin are walking side by side. They are agitated and having to keep calm and quiet as they walk pass the crowds of people.

"She's out of control, it's very clear what needs to be done." Spencer is whispering.

"We cannot proceed with her extermination without Wesker's approval." Birkin murmurs.

"Wesker is becoming soft. He won't do anything without an order sent from above! The business with this woman is creeping me out, I don't know what they want, or what they intended, but it's rapidly spiraling out of control. This whole thing is starting to interfere with my interests." Suddenly he stops, Birkin is watching expectantly. "Our interests ..." He corrects.

"Look, I'm not entirely happy with this, but look what happened to Nivans ... you really think that if Wesker realized that his cherished project was removed from the map he'll think it twice about doing the same to us? We'll be eliminated. Just like Nivans."

They've reached Spencer's office, he nods at his partner to precede him then he closes the door behind them and snaps the lock across.

"So what do you think we should do?" Spencer starts talking as he moves to his seat behind the desk.

"We'll keep him happy for now." Birkin replies. "It's reasonable to continue with the original plan, leave Hunk in charge of the women, bring the project to our facilities, after that we can continue with the main plan to get rid of Wesker and the rest of them. But until we have the project, or more importantly her DNA, there is little we can do."

Spencer smiled. Neither of the men were aware that they were being watched by the Umbrella defense system.

* * *

Alice and Claire are looking to the building directory, just five apartments, one per floor.

"Here." Claire points a finger towards an intercom, five different names, A. Abernathy clearly marked at the top.

Alice approaches the intercom and presses the buzzer. After a moment she presses it again, but nothing happens.

"I guess you're not home." Claire is trying to disperse the concern that is radiating from Alice. She smiles at her and bumps their shoulders together.

"I guess I'm not."

Claire tries to look in the windows while Alice is checking the door. She´s trying to identify the shadows and blurred objects through the glass, but she cannot see anything in particular, suddenly a shadow becomes visible and the door opens.

The concierge seems around 70 years. Plump and proper, duster in her hand. She starts opening the door.

"Mademoiselle Abernathy, there you are, I was wondering why I haven't seen you in a while." The woman says, looking at them both curiously.

"Yes, well here I am ..." Alice says nervously to the women. "Uhm I've been outside the country. Traveling. Abroad." She's acting really jumpy, Claire just smirks at this.

The concierge looks at Alice, as if she'd never seen her in that state, then she moves her eyes at Claire, looking her up and down with suspicion, as though she's the reason Alice looks like shit.

Alice realizes this and quickly tries to force a smile. "Uhm, I seem to have lost my keys, and I insisted on showing my apartment to my friend here…before continuing our journey."

The older woman just nods. Instant chilly disapproval. "I see. I've been ringing your bell. It seemed odd that you left without warning, and for so long!" She's looking at Alice through her glasses. "I hope nothing bad has happened?" Another stern look at Claire.

"No! No, of course not." Alice says.

"Eh, maybe its good you were away, we had some trouble with the hot water but it should be fine now."

She still looked at Claire like a piece of gum sticking undesirably on the sole of her shoe. Claire was trying not to laugh; amused by the way the woman was trying to drill a hole in her forehead with her eyes, and for the obvious discomfort of Alice.

"Great!" Alice begins. "We both need a bath. I mean, I need a bath, then, she needs a bath. Two baths. Me, then, uhm, right." She decides to stop talking rather than dig the hole deeper. Claire is looking at her smiling broadly, trying really hard not to laugh.

The concierge is looking at Alice speechless, and Alice is looking anywhere but at her. "Uhm, ok, I think we should go up to the apartment… uhm would you please give me a key?"

The old lady is starring at her.

"Uhm ma'am…" Alice says.

"Uh? Oh, Yes… right…the keys."

The concierge gives the key to Alice and then steps aside while they are heading to the stairs, Claire giggling softly.

Alice puts the key into the lock, exhaling audibly. She doesn't know what to expect, she begins to turn the key slowly, taking her time and then the door opens...

Nothing…

No bombs. No husband or wife and kids. No one.

She steps inside, there's a huge, rambling flat with a large entry hallway, and both women stand there looking around. It's obviously expensive, but cold, completely impersonal; there are no photographs, no mementos, and no human touch.

Alice walks into the living room, Claire following, both exploring their surroundings.

"It's big." is all that Claire manages to say. She goes to a large window. "Nice view."

Alice is silent. Struggling to get a feel for the place.

"This is really yours?" Claire continued. She likes the apartment.

"I guess so." Alice continued, she seems paralyzed.

She's trying to soak it all in. Willing herself to feel at home, she's touching things as she passes, as if the texture, a smell, anything will become familiar. She's deep in thought as they both go to the bedroom, Claire stands in the doorway, checking it out. It's so clean and simple, but it's not the décor she's most interested in. Alice walks towards an armoire, and stars to open it.

Just female clothes, no male competition Claire thinks, she's feeling weird and relieved at the same time.

"These are my clothes." Alice says, moving her hands through every piece of clothing.

Claire moves to the door again, heading for the kitchen. There are lots of gadgets around the walls, but there's no sign of food.

"It seems I've got some shopping to do." Alice has joined her, and now she's picking up a frying pan. "This is my frying pan." She knows she's sounding a little stupid, but she can't help it.

"Uhm Alice, while you get reacquainted with your pots, you mind if I take a bath?" Claire looks down at herself. "Feel kind of gross."

Alice lifts her gaze."Well if you can find the bathroom ..." She smiles. "Of course, there's no problem, go ahead."

Claire just smiles and goes to the living room, trying to find the bathroom, there are a couple of doors through which they have not yet entered, she tries with the first one.

"Ah ha!"

The master Bathroom. Claire looks around, it's a fairly large room, but like the rest of the house there's no personal décor. There's a big tub, and a large comfortable looking shower with a sliding transparent curtain. She goes to the shower, catching a glimpse of her own reflection in a mirror.

"God, I really do look like shit."

She looks down at the sink, there's a toothbrush, only one. Claire smiles at this and without waiting any longer she begins to undress.

Alice is back in the living room, she can hear Claire in the room on the left, so she heads to the door on the right, an office.

There's a desk, a chair, a phone, basic stuff. She starts to open a folder that is on the table when a scream cuts the silence of the house.

"_HOLY SHIT!"_

She grabs the first thing on the desk and charges towards the bathroom, without thinking she kicks at the door and runs in waving a staple gun in the air.

The door swings closed behind her as she looks around, her eyes landing on Claire.

_Oh Wow._

The water is running, no sign of danger, no one is attempting to harm Claire. No one is attempting to harm a naked and wet Claire. In the shower. Where she is standing, wet and naked. And looking at Alice with wide eyes.

_Well, she was not wrong about the view._

"You need something?" Claire is looking at her indignantly.

"Yeah, l ... Wait, I heard you scream!" Alice is trying to look anywhere but at Claire, it doesn't help that she's not attempting to cover her naked body. Her naked, wet body. In the shower, where she is standing…

"Alice?" Claire practically shouts at her. Alice snaps her eyes to Claire's face and offers a great impression of a statue. "I'm so sorry." Claire begins. "Your housekeeper was right about the hot water, it keeps changing from the North Pole to Mordor."

Silence. She just stands there. Like a statue.

"Well, that makes perfect sense." Is all that she manages to say.

"What makes perfect sense?"

"Uhm the scream and I…." She looks at the staple gun in her hand. "Oh God, I'm sorry I should be leaving like right now."

Claire is laughing. "Good-bye then." She says moving her eyes to the door.

"Yes, yes uhm good-bye and may I say good body ..."

_Oh my God._

Did those words really come out of her mouth?

Claire's eyebrow rises to her hairline. Alice assumes that means she did in fact say that out loud.

"Shit. I mean ... Shit."

Now she's heading towards the door, but instead of being in front of the living room she's facing a rack of towels.

_Damn it._

Now Claire is laughing at her.

"Lovely cabinet."

Claire just laughs harder. "I think it's the other door." She says.

"Yeah, this way ..." Alice runs to the exit without looking back, feeling her face burn with embarrassment.

When the door closes behind her, she slaps her forehead with her hand letting out a frustrated groan. The staple gun makes a thud sound as it hits the floor.

* * *

**Charles de Gaulle Airport, Paris.**

Hunk is walking in long strides, he's in a hurry, there is little time left to complete his mission and failure is never an option. He has never failed in his career, and this will be no exception. He walks, arrogantly towards the nearest cab, outside the terminal building. Another man walks toward the cab as well, but with a couple of huge strides Hunk manages to arrive before the other man.

"In another life, mate" He says, while entering the back of the taxi and arranging his suitcase beside him, smirking.

He looks at his watch, six hours, it's all he needs to prepare a strategy and execute it in time. He smiles to himself; he thrives on this kind of challenge. Quickly he gives the direction to the driver.

* * *

Alice and Claire leave the car in the busy street of Paris, after the incident in the shower; a dressed Claire had left the bathroom not saying word about it, much to Alice's relief. After taking a bath for herself, Alice suggested they go buy a few things as she was hungry.

"We can grab some food." Alice offered. "You must be starving, and we can find somewhere to put a call into the States since apparently my phone is disconnected."

Claire had nodded her agreement and after making sure to ask to the housekeeper to inform the telecom company about the phone, both had taken to the streets to find a supermarket or café and make a call about Claire's brother.

"So you've remembered something?" Claire says, pulling the shopping cart around a local AM/PM.

Alice is looking between various types of pasta. "Well, if remembering something is that you know which is the best macaroni for cabonara, well, yes."

Claire just smiles. "Well, that's something"

"I don't know, I hope to find something in the drawers of my desk, I started to do it earlier but ... uhm." Alice begins to turn red again. "Well… I'll do it after dinner… we'll see."

Claire smirks at her. "At least you know you have a staple gun, you know, for emergencies."

Alice groans. "I promised that we would look for your brother, but I think it will take time, we might perform better without an empty stomach."

Claire laughs softly. "Yes, I've noticed you have a voracious appetite"

Both women are still smiling as they head toward the cashier, there's a small television on a shelf, the woman is completely absorbed by the image shown on screen.

Alice clears her throat, catching the attention of the women.

"Oh excuse moi." she says and begins to pass objects by the electronic bar. "This business in Raccoon City? Terrible, so creepy. I have a relative who lives there!."

Both women look at her with curiosity, then to television.

"Oh my god." Claire whispered.

Indeed it is Raccoon city, or what is left of it. It can be seen from above, from a helicopter, the whole city is on fire, explosions booming out of the speakers, screams, shooting and some unidentified roar. The news man begins to speak.

"_This really is terrifying, are you seeing this? There is no way to explain what is happening here, people have gone mad! On the streets there is constant fighting, people running around in groups massacring anyone they come across."_

Suddenly a shout can be heard above everything else.

"_Oh my God, look at that it's like ..."_ The pilot is speaking, but the transmission cuts out. Suddenly the screen turns black, and after a minute the screen switches back to newsroom in Paris.

"_This was the live broadcast that transmitted almost 12 hours ago from Raccoon City, it looks like something from a horror movie, it's incredible how in a few hours the situation has changed so much in the city. We tried to restore the connection with our partners in the USA, but so far, we have not been able to reach them. Apparently all phone lines to the country are down. We've managed to talk with representatives of the Umbrella Corporation in Europe, who have reported that they are working with the U.S government to find a solution to this riot."_

"We should go." Alice whispers to Claire.

Claire just nods. Alice pays for what they bought and with a look of concern she walks towards the exit, carrying the bags. When they finish loading the bags in Claire's car, they head to a pay phone, however after several attempts to connect with the States they had to accept that the news was correct, there was no way to make contact.

They tried to call again from an internet cafe; however the phone connected far too quickly to an answering machine.

_"Thank you for calling the Raccoon City Umbrella headquarters. There was a problem when trying to connect your call, please try again later_."

"This is bullshit." Claire said. "It's not working, there's no way that call made it to the States, that was a local call. I'm starting to dislike this whole thing with Umbrella. What the hell are they doing?"

Alice just watched thoughtfully.

"Let's go back to the apartment, perhaps they've already connected my phone."

* * *

**Exterior McCulkin Horse breeder Farm, Montana.**

The violet horizon is turning orange, but it's still quite dark when a crusty old farm-hand, Rake, opens the creaking door of a stable and with an oil lamp and lead three horses out into the morning breeze.

Two dogs, a Schnauzer and a Spaniel, romp at his heels as Rake opens a log gate. Two of the untethered horses trot obediently into a large corral, the third, a beautiful stallion, resists, snorting, tossing its head in high spirits.

"Get in there, Igor. Quit horsin' around." The man is yelling. "Get in!"

Igor moves into the corral, strutting proudly.

Rake shuts the gate behind the stallion, which begins to gallop around happily inside the fence. All seems well, until the dogs suddenly go on point. Their ears perked, sniffing the air, they begin to whine.

"What's wrong with you two? You're going to wake everybody up."

A startling sound makes Rake spin around to find Igor and the other horses, their eyes flaring, trying to kick their way out of the fencing. They seem terrified. Something is moving, fast, running to the barn.

Whatever it is that's running, charging slathering hungrily has reached the corral, darting through the fence, past the kicking horses, and leaping at Rake, who whirls around and cries out in pain as the oil lamp falls to the ground leaving everything in darkness.

Inside the main house of the farm, green eyes snap open. A girl of about 16 years wakes up scared from a bad dream, she tries to continue sleeping but then she remembers that her father must be in the barn with the horses. She smiles and quickly jumps out of bed heading to the kitchen, where she puts on her rubber boots and leaves the house. The morning is cold now but she doesn't pay attention to this and heads toward the barn with quick steps, yawning every now and then.

When she gets closer to her destination she sees three large shapes lying in the grass of the corral. Something is wrong, rushing over, the girl realizes they're the horses; one of them is Igor, her stallion, dead, in a pool of blood, with its belly torn open and a huge chunk out of its neck.

She moves away from the picture she has before her eyes screaming, taking deep breaths trying not to vomit, she hears a weak moaning sound, she turns and sees…Her father, Rake, lying near a water pump.

"Oh no..."

She rushes to the man's side and finds him brutally slashed, barely clinging to life.

"Daddy no!" Is all that manages to say before breaking into sobs, throwing herself down beside the man.

"Dahlia..." Coughing blood. "They ... they came outta the trees, I don't ... I don't know what they are…"

She knew that his wounds were fatal.

"I ... I never seen 'em comin' ..."

"Dad! ... What should I do? ... MOM! MOM!"

"I just ... never seen 'em comin' ... never even had a chance to ... turn a gun on 'em"

"Please daddy ..." She starts.

There's a thunder in the sky. Dahlia looks up. A fleet of black Hueys appears on the horizon; they split up, seven banking off toward the town, the remaining three grinding ahead over the forest, slowing down, dropping in altitude.

"Listen to me Dahlia ... you need to get out of here." The man is trying to concentrate all his strength to speak. "You gotta go, you, your mother and your brother go into the village and alert everyone."

"Daddy but.."

"It's too late for me honey. I don't know if those animals will return, you have to protect your family, understand?"

The girl just nods, her eyes filled with tears.

"Now…Go away!"

* * *

**Exempla Saint Joseph Hospital. Denver, Colorado.**

A man in a white coat runs along a hospital corridor. The lights turn on and off at intervals and all around him is lying on the floor, beds, surgical instruments everywhere, and blood, lots of blood on the walls.

"Stay away from me!" The man shouts to no one in particular as he runs down the hall, he seems to be running away from something, his eyes are open showing terror, he's looking like a madman.

There's a room at his right, he can read a sign that says Research Laboratory, and he enters, closing the door behind him. This man, Dr. Marcus, as his badge says looks around, searching with his scared eyes at a sound that can be heard clearly in the room. He's surrounded by different fluids on the floor, broken test tubes everywhere, a complete disaster but he cannot find the source.

Dr. Marcus is close to the central laboratory table moving slowly and there, behind the table he gets to see a figure, a hunched figure, also in a white coat, however it is stained with blood everywhere. He's leaning over a human body, apparently ... feeding!

"Oh dear God." The doctor's voice comes out as a whisper, but enough to catch the attention of the other being who is in the room.

With a grunt, the figure turns and lunges, its face covered with blood looking with bloodshot eyes at the terrified doctor.

"For God's sake, don't come any closer." It's all that the man manages to say.

From the closet behind Marcus, a shadow is darting frantically moving towards his new target. The doctor walks backwards, moving away from the bloodied man walking toward him.

"Please …" A hand suddenly lurches into the doctor's back; there are lesions on the flesh. Having no time to look at his attacker, Dr. Marcus falls to his knees, screaming in pain, the creature behind him furiously biting his neck.

* * *

**McCulkin Farm Horse breeder, Montana.**

Combat boots are heard on the grass, suddenly they stop when they find bits of dogs and horses parts strewn all through the surrounding brush, remnants of what was obviously a feeding-frenzy.

"Jesus Christ." One of the men says.

"You ever eat road-kill, Sullivan?" Another man says.

"Aiken, a guy with a brain your size would be better off dead." A tough, body-built babe steps in, looking carefully at the pieces of animals. "It looks like the work of a wolf."

"You take everything so seriously Ocampo." Aiken is saying.

"Want me to shoot ya, Aiken?" She replies. Aiken just smiles.

A shot breaks the conversation, the four commandos look and quickly move to the origin of the shot, the edge of the woods, just in time when one of the farm dogs, the Spaniel, not the entire animal, but one of its three separate parts is trying to crawl. Its front end crushed head, bloody neck and a single broken paw is starting to rise.

Fifty yards away, Rake's hand relaxes. The earth spills out through his fingers as the dead man's eyes pop open**.**

* * *

It was night. Alice and Claire are sitting at the table, next to a pair of empty plates and a bottle of wine that is about to end. Both leaning back in their chairs, full from dinner.

"Thank you very much for all this, I know I didn't trust you, with all that "drive me to Paris for twenty grand" stuff, but you have been really sweet, helping me with my brother, giving me a place to stay tonight. I feel wrong about taking the cash. I should give it back, I mean you can pay for the gas but it feels wrong."

"Don't." Alice shook her head. "I should give you more." She laughs. "I don't know many people that would have helped. Claire I really want to help you find your brother, I'm worried about this thing with Umbrella and Raccoon. I don't know why, but it seems that something about this is tugging at the back of my memory, I just don't know why yet."

"I feel like I'm taking you from your own problems, you still don't remember who you are."

"I know it sound weird but I can't shake the feeling that this thing with Umbrella will help me find who I am." She didn't add that she was starting to feel sure she wouldn't like it when she did.

Claire is just staring at her. Alice leaned back to the table behind her and lifted the phone up. Still no tone.

"Damn. Nothing yet, "says looking at Claire apologetically.

"I'll go downstairs and I'll talk to the…"

"No." Claire says. "We'll try again tomorrow, it's late and I'm tired, I'm pretty sure you are exhausted, lets get some rest"

Alice nods.

"And I'll return the money."

Alice smiles. "No need, I gave it to you for the ride, a deals a deal, not many people would have done what you did."

Claire is smirking. "Well at least you have to let me pay for breakfast tomorrow." She says, taking a sip of her wine and feeling the rest of it going to her head.

"Not a chance."

"Hey." Claire laughs and shoves her shoulder. "Are you trying to score points for something? Paying for everything we need?" The wine is definitely bringing out her playful side.

Alice snorts "Maybe." She drawls with a wink, Claire is laughing at her.

"I'm curious. What would that be?" Claire voice is low, a little seductive.

"Uhhm.." Alice leans closer. "Double points on my credit card. I won't lie to you Claire, I'm gonna have enough to select from a hair dryer or a toaster soon." She said smiling sweetly.

Claire only laughs harder.

"Very Funny."

"So it seems." She winks again.

"Well we should probably stop drinking this." Claire says lifting the bottle. "Otherwise we won't find a damn thing in your office."

Alice agrees.

"Come on." Claire gets up from her seat, shoving Alice with her hands to get her to move. Alice just smiles and gets up from her seat, following Claire.

"You're going to help me look through my drawers?" Alice begins.

"Sure! It's the least I can do to help." Claire stops for a moment.

"What is it?"

Claire is turning around to face the other woman. "Do I get points for that? I mean I would really enjoy toast for breakfast."

Alice just shakes her head from side to side, laughing softly.

"We'll see."


	5. 5 Diamond Eyes

**5. Diamond Eyes**

"So, this is your office?" Claire says from the doorway. "God, you live like a monk…"

Alice nods, sitting down in a chair behind the desk while Claire enters the room taking the chair that's in front.

"All this stuff," Alice is pointing to the folders that are on the desk. "They've all got this stamp, UBCS, does that sound familiar to you?"

Claire shakes her head. "Let's take a look?" She leans forward and grabs the nearest folder, while Alice starts on the drawers. Claire begins to read what seems to be a report of weapons.

"Assault rifle… selective between automatic, semi-automatic, and burst… something about intermediate cartridge and a detachable magazine…. Uhm then stuff about the StG 44, AK-47, M16 rifle, Enfield SA80. Ok, Weapons. Lots of weapons. Do you remember anything about guns?"

Alice nods. Looking at her.

"I think my work is related to some security thing; that must be why I know how to fight and handle weapons."

"Mmmm ..." Claire replies noncommittally. She throws the folder aside and grabs another.

Alice opens another folder, full of maps. She puts it aside, going to yet another: information on vessels, checklists, lots of numbers incomprehensible to her memory.

"I don't get it," She starts. "This isn't making sense."

"Well you should read this…" Claire hands over her latest folder.

"What is it?"

"It's some kind of report about a virus that has shown up in Africa. It's variations of the Ebola virus" Claire is looking at Alice, one eyebrow up.

Now Alice is moving, gripping the folder that Claire is holding.

_The death rate of someone affected by this new strain of Ebola is 90 percent compared to the 70% of the original and other known strains. Unlike the original, this particular strain targets the organs and in as little as 48 hours, renders them irreversibly damaged. Death follows shortly after. This kind of strain was named Tyrant Virus because of the peculiar form that the virus takes in a host. There is no known prevention or cure and due to its possible use as a bio weapon it has been graded Bio-safety level four. If an outbreak occurred, it could quite possibly destroy a large part of the human race._

_What the fuck?_

"Look here." Claire is pointing something for Alice to look at.

_The Biological Weapons Prohibition Pact created in 1980 stand that it is illegal to study the virus as a weapon. However, even if the company wasn't the one to research it, there was no proof that someone else wouldn't be doing that same thing and so it was considered legal for Umbrella to research it. There is a thin line in "international Law" between what is acceptable and what is prohibited…._

_UMBRELLA_

Claire sighs, looking at Alice with wide eyes."Umbrella." She mutters. "Why in the hell do you have this information about Umbrella? Bio-weapons? What the fuck Alice?"

"I don't know." Alice has moved back to the desk grabbing another folder and opening it violently not prepared for what comes next. A picture of her, wearing a black uniform, a full sheet of information about her work, and above, in large letters: Umbrella Biohazard Countermeasure Service.

Apparently Claire has noticed her discomfort. "What have you found?"

_NAME: Alice Abernathy_

_AGE: 25_

_STATUS: Single_

_PLACE OF RESIDENCE: Raccoon City_

_POSITION: Head of Security Raccoon City headquarters_

_Oh God._

Claire has risen from her seat and is looking over Alice's shoulder.

"Shit ..." is the only word she can manage as she reads the paper. "No way! I cannot fucking believe it!"

Claire is moving away from Alice.

"Claire I ..."

"You what Alice? You work for Umbrella? "Claire is starting to panic. Alice tries to say something, anything but she can't. Everything is blurry, things have changed. They shouldn't be there. She feels bad, she wants to speak, to tell Claire to calm down but she can't, everything is moving around her. She knows this is bad and she's scared.

"Are you listening? God damn it." She can hear Claire yelling, but then nothing. She's trying to form words but they don't come out of her mouth.

Her eyes are wide open; her pupils are increasing their normal size.

"Alice..." Claire has notice that something is very wrong with the other woman.

There are flashes inside her head, sudden flashes of color and sound, unrecognizable at first but then it hits her, blurred images, distorted voices, memories, a life time of memories in violent short bursts.

Faces, lot of faces, she can't remember their names though. Flashes of places she's been, all over the world. More blurred memories, her past, when she was a child, her parents, she can remember them but she can't remember their names or if they are still alive. Memories of her job and training, lots of weapons, more people and then Umbrella.

She's closing her eyelid, feeling nauseous, Claire is moving towards her watching with horror at the R.E.M movements in Alice's eyes.

Suddenly, the images become sharper.

_Alice is in a garden, it seems like winter as a deep layer of snow prevents her from moving gracefully. In front of her is a woman of about 20 years._

"_I can help you get the virus. Access codes, security plans, the works." _

"_Good." The other woman is smiling._

"_But there's going to be a price."_

"_Name it."_

"_You have to guarantee me ... You'll help bring the Corporation down."_

_The picture changes. She's in a black SUV with three other people, she can't see their faces but she knows that she's safe. The black SUV exits a freeway, there's a road sign that tells her that these are the outskirts of Raccoon City. The SUV pulls into a nondescript warehouse, inside there is a lot of activity. The BSAA headquarters, the resistance against Umbrella. There are vehicles, weapons, sleeping quarters and computers. There are dozens of people working there, keeping track of all Umbrella's dirty dealings._

_There's a woman, a tall one. She wearing a police uniform, on one shoulder Alice can read S.T.A.R.S, her hair is short and black, and she's smiling at her, at her right there's a man, he's wearing the same uniform, he just nods at her with a wink. If only she could remember their names._

"_We're almost there." The man is saying. "Now you just have to do your part."_

"_But you have to be careful," The woman is saying. "If anything happens…"_

_More blurred images. But this time she can't see anything._

_"Don't fight it," A man says. "We have to blindfold you my dear, it's for our own safety."_

_She's feeling Panic._

_"Relax…." and then there's a sharp pain in her arm, the prick of a syringe._

_Suddenly her eyes get used to the light. A white laboratory, more like a hospital room, she's on a bed and there are some people around her wearing masks and white coats, a man looks down at her, he is smiling._

_"It's ok my dear."_

_But within her, something is saying no, sounds of bullets, screams of pain, animalistic grunts, bloody memories._

"Alice!" She can hear Claire, she can feel her standing right beside her, but the images are still running in her mind.

An underground facility, people using white lab coats. A container being lifted from the lab refrigerator, gloved hands slip it into a foam lined carry case. The vials are delicate, filled with a cool blue liquid…

"ALICE"

Blue eyes snap open. Alice sits up looking around; trying to absorb all the new information her brain has handed her. Claire is kneeling at her side, looking at her with concern.

"What, what happened?" Her voice is more husky than normal. She's moving her head from side to side trying to dispel the grogginess.

"Hey don't. Your nose is bleeding," From the desk Claire reaches a handkerchief with which she cleans the blood off the other woman's nose. "You kinda zoned out for a moment then you started shaking, I thought you were going to faint..."

"Umbrella." Alice is trying to accommodate her thoughts. "I worked for them." She begins speaking, quickly. "I worked for them Claire, but I swear I was not following their plans, I was working with someone, we were about to reveal all this to the media, to expose it, to bring them down. Look at the desk, there is a folder with information about BSAA you have to believe me…"

"Wow, wait ... slow down. You remembered something?"

"I think that's why I nearly fainted." She tried to get up, still shaking; Claire leaned into her, supporting her weight.

"Feeling better?"

Suddenly Alice freezes.

"What's wrong?" Claire says.

"Get down, now!"

Claire doesn't think twice and she drops to the ground. As she ducks down Alice places herself over the other woman to protect what's coming.

Everything starts happening at once.

There's a silenced automatic weapons fire raking into the apartment leaving the window peppered with holes. Both women are on the floor, Claire cursing, Alice looking at the window as it shatters above her. A man appears in the office, as if from thin air.

Hunk is hanging from an abseil rope, firing blind strafing the apartment. Alice rises rapidly, kicking the office's chair across the room. Hunk reacts by instinct, moving to his approaching target as the chair is tossed aside. Alice is rolling away, moving faster than Hunk who is coming behind her, and still firing. Claire is still on the ground, no longer cursing, she is in shock not moving at all.

Alice crosses the living room buzzing, jumping over the couch to gain more time, she heads to the kitchen, looking for something she could use to defend herself, Hunk has caught up to her so she throws the kitchen table between them, with her right hand, she grabs one of the kitchen knives and throws it at Hunk, missing him, her only weapon now discarded she is left powerless.

Alice does not waste time, she jumps the table, intent on getting to Hunk, but he lifts his gun and starts to fire, causing her to jump back, pulling the table down to hide behind.

PFT!-PFT!-PFT!-PFT!-PFT!

Gunfire is tearing wildly around the room. The wall is shattered in no time; Alice hears the click of an empty cartridge, she jumps up, however there is no sign of Hunk in the kitchen anymore. Alice turns to the exit, walking towards the living room slowly, with another knife in her hand, before she knows what's happening Hunk is behind her kicking the knife up and out of her hand.

Alice is off balance, Hunk is driving his palm up into Alice's jaw, her body wants to fall backwards, but the man has her arm in his free hand jerking like a rope. In a surprising move Alice pulls him to one side, and he falls near the bathroom, she throws the knife at him, snarling in satisfaction as it thuds into his shoulder.

"Claire! Get away from there." She yells at the woman who's curled up near the door, looking in shock at the bloodied Hunk.

"What the fuck are you doing? Who the fuck is he?"

"Claire move!"

Claire scrabbles to get off the ground and dives into the kitchen, Muttering "fuck, fuck, fuck," as she passes the living room.

Alice goes to Hunk who is trying to move the knife from his shoulder; clawing for it with one hand and lifting his knees as a weapon, he kicks hard into Alice's chest and then down her foot. Alice is on the floor, breathing hard, all around her is turning black again, she's trying to get up but her body isn't responding.

Hunk is raising his gun again, pointing to her chest, about to pull the trigger when...

Hunk falls in front of her, crying in pain; one hand on the back of his head, behind him stands Claire with a toaster in both hands, the corner of the device dripping blood. Claire has beaten the unknown man with a toaster, which at another time would have been funny to Alice.

"Are you ok?" Claire is saying, throwing the toaster on the floor. Hunk is leaving a mess with his bloody hands as he struggles to get to his feet.

"Ru… uu..n…" Alice is trying to speak but she can't. Her body is refusing to do as she commands it.

Hunk is standing on his feet in no time, blood pouring from his shoulder and head; he aims his gun at Claire's chest.

_No!_ Alice thinks. _Not her_.

She tries to stand with the little strength she still has left. But Hunk keeps her on the ground by placing his foot on her chest; she can feel two or three ribs broken. Alice tries to lift his foot, looking at Claire.

"Claire run!" She shouts with all the strength left in her.

Everything moves as if in slow motion. Claire is walking backwards, staring in horror at the man that means to kill her. Hunk squeezes the trigger not wasting time and not allowing her time to duck. Alice looks as the bullet leaves the man's gun, something happens inside of her, something is triggered; an almost explosive force rips through her mind and body.

Claire has closed her eyes, as if this would stop the pain she expects to feel. When nothing happens, she opens them again and gasps. The bullet meant for her is floating in mid-air, centimeters from her chest. A confused and surprised Hunk is also looking at the floating bullet, he moves toward her as he pulls the trigger again and again, and each time the bullets just hover, as through an invisible barrier surrounds her.

Claire darts her eyes to Alice, stunned that the woman's eyes are wide open, her pupils fully dilated, fixated on the floating ammo. She rises, her body rigid as she turns to a stunned Hunk and kicks his leg out from under him, breaking it with a sickening crack.

The bullets fall to the ground with a clang. Hunk is in the ground, leg hanging like a rag doll. Alice is above Hunk, who looks at her with horror.

"What the fuck?" Claire says, not sure of what just happened. Not sure if she's alive or just dead and imagining things in her head. Alice just ignores her, grabbing the guy's backpack and tossing it at Claire.

"Alice! Tell me what's happening!"

Alice looks at the other woman with wild eyes. "Open it"

Claire takes a few steps back, scared.

"Claire, What's he got in there?" Hunk tries to stand but Alice stops him placing her foot on his chest. "Who are you?" Kicking him down and listening to him groan. "Who are you?"

Claire is reviewing the man's backpack still stunned.

"Who are you?! Tell me who you are! Who sent you? "Alice's bearing down. "Tell me!"

Hunk is staring back, mouth shut, his expression is pure fear.

"WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL ME?"

"Alice ..."

"TELL ME!"

"ALICE!"

Alice turns to the other woman; Claire is watching her with horror, backpack in one hand and a piece of paper in the other.

"What?"

"This ... this is my picture ... he's got my picture. "She's holding it up, in horror. "This is me, this is Zurich ... this ... shit… this is too much…"

Before Alice can say or do something the other woman is walking towards the bleeding Hunk, nudging Alice to the side.

"Where does this come from?" She begins, gripping the hem of his shirt. "Why do you have my picture?"

"Claire, just ..." Alice tries to speak but is interrupted by a murderous look from Claire.

"Where did you get my picture?" Claire is yelling. She's shaking him violently. "Who the fuck are you?"

"Let me do this, okay?" Alice is approaching the other woman.

"Do what?" Alice is trying to release the man from Claire's grip. "What are you doing? He's got my God damn picture! He was trying to kill us! I'm gonna ..."

Now there's knocking at the door and the concierge can be clearly heard, she's calling urgently.

"Mademoiselle Abernathy! Mademoiselle! What's going on? Is everything all right in there? ... "She keeps banging.

Claire is trying to kick Hunk with her foot, he is bleeding and shaking while Alice is holding Claire back preventing her from reaching the downed man, all the while desperately trying to think of a solution.

Suddenly Hunk is moving. And fast. He springs onto his good leg, Alice moves Claire aside trying to protect her from the attack but it never comes. Hunk is not attacking; he's running away. There's nowhere to go, absolutely nowhere except...

The window. Hunk is putting all his efforts into the last stride. The window shattering, and Hunk in a cloud of broken grass, sixty feet above the street, is falling and falling until he hit the ground with an aggressive impact, landing on the roof of a parked car.

Alice is in motion, doing five things at once, checking the window, grabbing the red bag, grabbing what she can from the drawers of the desk, grabbing the backpack from Claire's hands and trying to think what to do. There's no time to spare.

The concierge is still outside the door. "I'm calling the police, Mademoiselle! You give me no choice! I'm calling them right away! "

"Great." Alice scoffs.

Claire is standing there in utter shock, paralyzed. "He's dead isn't he?"

Alice looks up at her; they look at each other for a moment without speaking.

"Claire, there's no time…"

"He went out the window. Why? Why would someone do that?"

"We can't stay here. I can't stay here, it's not safe."

"He came to kill us."

"I can get us out of here, but we have to go now."

"You knew he was coming?"

"No."

"I trusted you."

"You're wrong. I didn't know. I swear to you, I didn't know."

"I don't trust anybody but I trusted you! And… and you work for Umbrella"

"I don't! I…. I didn't know this would happen."

"He had my picture! He knew I was here; you're the only one who knows that! He came here to kill…"

"Us Claire, he came to kill us. And where is he now?" That stops Claire's ranting for a minute. "And you were trying to kill him too, with that toaster…"

Claire gasps.

"Omygod…omygod… Why would I do that? What was I thinking?"

"I'd like to think you were protecting me…"

"I was not!" Claire snorted indignantly. "This… this shitty thing is your fault!"

Alice rolled her eyes. "You believe what you want, but I'm telling you the truth. I never would have brought you here if I thought it was dangerous." Alice is waving her hand around. "And yes, I used to work for Umbrella but I was working against them as a double agent. I was trying to bring them down"

"God…He was going to kill us and then…" She stops looking at Alice like she's from outer space, completely overwhelmed. "You… he was… the bullets… what the fuck?"

"Look, right now is not the time for this." Alice has finished packing and she's grabbing Claire's hands now looking at her straight in the eye. "We need to get out of here! Then I'll explain everything, I swear but first we need to get away…"

"We?" Claire is snorting sarcastically. "There's no "we" Alice!"

Silence. Alice looks as I she has been struck. She releases Claire's hands as she is walking backwards. Hurt. Claire quickly realizes her error.

"I…."

For a moment Alice gazes away still looking hurt, she turns and smiles sardonically. She starts moving around the office, looking for something useful.

"Alice I…"

"Yes, you're right. Stay here, it is better. But I can't stay here. I need to move." Her voice is bitter and cold.

"But the police…" Claire is trying to soothe the conversation.

"No time…" She's moving to the kitchen.

"But…" Claire is right behind her, moving through the shattered glass. "Would you please stop for a second?"

"No time." Alice repeats as she enters the kitchen.

"Oh God. Wait! Come on! We'll explain it."

"We?" She stops and looks at Claire. "There is no "we", isn't that what you said?" Alice throws her words back at her sarcastically.

"I didn't.."

"I need to move…"

"I'm sorry! Ok? But this shit is overwhelming." She says pacing round. "Look, we'll tell everything to the police when they get here, ok?"

"How?" Alice is throwing random food stuff in Hunk's backpack. Cans, bottled water.

"There's two of us. we'll tell them. We'll just…"

"We Claire?" She says sarcastically.

"Stop it!" Claire is grabbing her. "They'll have to believe us, we can explain it…I mean the things that they'll believe, not the force and Jedi stuff but…"

"Forget it."

"We'll tell them what happened!"

"I don't know what happened! I don't know who he is! I don't know what he wants! I don't even know who or what I am! The only thing I know is that if I stay here, I'm never gonna find out!"

That's it, she has already lost too much time with this. She's pulling the backpack on, just about to make her move.

"No, please don't go." Claire is panicking at the thought of Alice leaving her there alone.

Alice heads to the door, walking fast. But Claire is standing still, utterly swamped, lost. And Alice just can't stop the feeling that sits like a rock in her. She turns around.

_Shit. This is such a bad idea._

"Come with me," Her voice has softened. Claire is looking at her sadly.

Alice is waiting. "Claire, come with me," It sounds more like a plea.

"We should stay…"

"You know I can't, it's too dangerous. You need to believe me…I… I can get us out of here, I know I can, then we can think and I'll tell you everything I know. I can protect you. Please come with me."

"How can I trust you?"

Alice looks at the floor.

"I don't know… truly…I know all this is my fault, but the idea of not having you around, leaving you here… Shit, I don't want you to get hurt.

Claire has lost her speech, the only thing she can do is look at those mesmerizing eyes. Alice's beautiful blue eyes.

"Ok." She nods. "Ok." She is still looking at Alice as a glint crosses those eyes.

Those deep diamond eyes.

* * *

Exit the Paris Apartment building

It's past midnight and a crowd is gathered around Hunks body. Rubberneckers pointing up to the broken window. The lady concierge running out to the street in panic screaming and calling for all the possibly deities she knows. The sound of sirens is bleeding in from the distance and a black mustang is pulling out of the alley, turning away from the scene. Disappearing into the streets of Paris.


	6. 6 Black Dog

**Exterior Hostel de la Prix.**

The day is breaking. The precarious rays of sun slip through the window of the black mustang. Alice is looking thoughtful as she stares outside the hostel; Claire is just waiting for a signal. The hostel is ostensible. Not flashy, cheap and unnoticed. Out of the way, just what they both need at the moment.

"Let's go." Alice mutters, giving Claire a reassuring smile, she just nods, getting out of the car, carrying Hunks backpack.

During the car ride as Alice drove, neither had said a word, both silent and lost in thought. Since she'd met Alice, Claire had noticed something different about her, but she could never have imagined something as strange as everything that had happened so far. From the strange man who had entered the flat in the middle of the night shooting everywhere while trying to kill them, to when Claire had been targeted and sure to die, Alice had stopped those bullets in a way that could not be explained and everything had changed.

Both walk up to the reception. A bald man, probably the owner is behind a desk, looking at a newspaper with boredom, he seemingly realizes that two women have entered the small hall. When Alice arrives at the desk, he looks up.

"€17 per night." Right to the matter. His tone matches his face, bored and disinterested.

Alice just pays him without saying a word. The dealing is fast. The man just gives her the keys, no flamboyance, just cash and carry. No questions asked. Good. During that quick interaction, Claire has been right behind Alice, not paying attention at all to her surroundings, her mind is a myriad of questions and she's thinking about Alice.

Again.

Claire is not quite sure how to interpret all that she has gone through in such a short time with this woman, there are so many things in her head right now that she can feel the beginnings of a terrible headache forming in the back of her skull, plus the fatigue is quickly kicking its way into her body, all that she wants right now is to get to a room and crash into bed, but she knows that that's not going to happen until she gets some answers from Alice.

Alice.

Claire is thinking how strange this woman makes her feel. Somehow she feels that she can trust Alice with her life, she did save her from certain death, but also the woman has the facility to set her off very fast and make Claire a bundle of nerves and anger.

Not realizing how or when, they arrived at the room. Her feet have followed the other woman down the stairs and they are facing room 07. It's a very small room with two parallel beds facing the front door, a shelf; where a TV that seems to belong to the last century covers the entire length of the shelf that is leaning against the right wall, finally a little table in a corner.

"Cozy." Alice mutters under her breath. Claire is quiet.

Both look at each other, not sure of what to do or what to say.

"Alice…"

"Claire I…"

That brings a smile to their lips, but the awkwardness is still in the air. Claire moves to the bottom of the bed, sitting, she makes a wave with her hand, indicating Alice to speak first. Alice looks at her nervously leaning against the table in the corner.

"I know what you're going to say." Alice starts, looking Claire right the eye. "I… I'll tell you what I know, and then you can ask me anything, OK?"

"OK."

* * *

**Umbrella headquarters conference room. Zurich**

Its 5 am in the morning and everybody is there. All the board members are waiting impatiently as the face of Albert Wesker appears in the monitor.

"Good morning gentleman." He says, slurring his words as usual. The rest of the board just nods at him, not saying a word. "I believe I have some good news for you all."

There are several whispers among the board. Wesker just smiles, taking his sweet time, pausing for dramatic purpose.

"As you all know, for a moment there we thought that Cain's ridiculous idea of blowing up the city would work to contain the virus, however it has already infected rivers and animals, so it is spreading through the United States, I have reports it has reached Central America as well."

Some of the board members are gasping, whispering things.

"And how is that a good thing?" One of them manages to say.

Wesker's smile widens.

"Well you see, the news has quickly traveled the world, we had tried to cover it as disease at first but now we've achieved our secondary goal of laying the blame at Middle East. We have been planting false evidence and hacking all the relevant agencies databases around the globe."

There's a movement among the assembled. All gasping and talking to each other. Wesker is almost laughing, amused by the men in the room.

"You're saying that there's no way anyone could find out about Umbrella's experiments?" Birkin is saying.

"Of course. At first the European television networks tried to concern themselves, with the problem, however Umbrella had Agent Wong infiltrate their databases and she deleted all existing communication with the host country first, then with the entire American continent.

There is no whispering anymore, the entire room is filled with heated conversation.

"What?"

"You cut all connection with America?"

"How did you manage to do that?"

"What's…"

"Gentleman please." It is Spencer's firm voice, the rest of the board quiet down.

"Would you care to enlighten us all here Wesker? Because I can't see anything good in this prattle you're pulling out."

Wesker smile fades a little bit.

"Ah well you see my friend." He starts and Spencer makes a grimace at the word 'friend', coming from Wesker, his good mood is completely disturbing. "For years we've been trying to imitate an environment fitting enough to test our subjects and B.O.W."

Wesker is smiling like a mad man. "And now we got a whole continent to do it."

Everybody is quiet, thinking exactly the same thing. This man is crazy, completely certifiable, and all at the head of the company must be as insane as well. Birkin is looking at Spencer, throwing him glances, trying to soothe him.

"And what about the virus?" He says trying to calm himself a bit. "Don't you think it will pass through this part of the world?"

Wesker is smiling again.

"We are working on it, as I told you, very good news indeed." And with he's off the screen.

* * *

For the past 30 minutes Alice has been telling Claire all about her relationship with Umbrella. She has told her that she was head of a security facility called the Hive, an underground laboratory located near the forest, that her training was very specialized and better than the militarized one.

She felt a little weird, talking about herself as if she remembered everything, when in actuality; she just remembered a little from her past and was sharing it. Claire however has been paying attention, not saying a word, just digesting everything.

Alice told her that she didn't know at first about Umbrella's more dirty dealings, that she was told that they needed high security as the pharmaceutical goods they synthesized were expensive and dangerous in the wrong hands. She told her that as soon as she found out about the viral and bio-weaponry and the experiments that they were making with human DNA and human beings, she set out to find a way to bring the corporation down. Somehow, and although everything sounded incredibly farfetched, Claire believed her, and for that, Alice was very grateful.

"I joined forces with one of the S.T.A.R.S commanders, I really can't remember her name, and before you ask, I don't know if I met your brother." She said looking apologetically at Claire.

She continued to tell Claire all about the B.S.A.A., a force founded by herself and a few others that knew about Umbrella's true purpose, with the idea of bringing down the company by stealing its viral weapons to expose them to the media.

"Of course it was a secret organization, I mean, most of us worked for the company and if they found out, we would undoubtedly be killed. Or worse."

Then she told her that at first they tried to infiltrate into their labs but that it was impossible.

During the conversation, they had changed positions, Alice is sitting at the bottom of the bed and Claire is pacing around the small bedroom, trying to take it all in at once.

"What happened then?" She asks.

"I remember a woman, about my age, an Asian woman, I can't remember her name, well I can't even remember if she ever told me her name." Alice is trying to remember her dream.

_"I can help you get the virus. Access codes, security plans, the works."_

_"Good."_

_"But there's going to be a price."_

_"Name it."_

_"You have to guarantee me ... You'll help bring the Corporation down."_

"She said she was part of a large group of mercenaries; they all wanted the same thing: Bring Umbrella down. She never told me why, but she was going to help us. She… she got the idea of infiltrating one of us like a subject test, into the lab. It was a good idea so I offered myself for the job.

Now Claire has stop moving and it's looking at her as if not believing what she just said.

"You did what?"

Alice is feeling a little bit uncomfortable. She's getting to the part that she doesn't like at all.

"They needed human DNA to combine it with the T-Virus, at first we thought they would only take a sample of my marrow, but then…"

_"Don't fight it. We have to blindfold you my dear, it's for your own safety. Relax…."_

She's not dreaming but she can feel the panic that she felt that day. And she remembers the sharp pain in her arm, the prick of a syringe so vivid.

"T-Virus?" Claire says bringing her back to the present.

"T stands for Tyrant." Alice explains. "Yes, the same virus you saw in that Umbrella report."

"Jesus." Claire isn't moving; she's just standing there, looking at the floor, completely out of herself, trying to assimilate that last bit of their conversation.

"They were trying to create a weapon. A biological weapon to kill an entire civilization" She's talking more to herself. "Why Alice?"

"We're talking about Umbrella, they didn't care if it would eliminate half the planet, not if someone would pay for that weapon."

"Who would pay for something like that?" Claire is looking at Alice for answers.

"You'd be amazed to know how many entities would pay for something like that around the world, just to have power."

"Oh God, this is bigger than I thought." Claire is moving again. "So they combined some of your DNA with that?"

Alice gives her a bitter smile. "That girl? The Asian one? She was working for Umbrella and they got me. They knew what I was trying to do. They didn't take a sample of my DNA..." She shook her head. "They took it all."

Claire is sitting again, next to Alice, her hand resting on Alice's shoulder in sympathy. "What you mean, took it all?"

"The last thing I remember is waking up in a hospital room"

Claire is gasping; this whole thing is starting to freak her out. She's not sure if she wants to know the end of the story.

"You offered yourself? You offered yourself for an experiment, even knowing what you do about how messed up Umbrella is?"

"Yes." Alice is looking at her. "There wasn't another way, we tried so hard, believe me, for years, but it was near impossible, so when the first real opportunity to bring us a step forward came, I took it."

"Did anyone think it would be a set up?"

"I honestly didn't care at the time, I was so eager to bring them down, it didn't matter, there was a plan, while I was in there, someone else would infiltrate the Hive, to steal the virus, I can't remember how everything went wrong, but I know something happened."

Claire wants to ask what was it that they did to her, but she's not brave enough. She can see that Alice is hurting and confused; she's shifting uncomfortably; like she knows what Claire is thinking.

"They…" She takes a deep breath moving as far away from Claire as possible in as much as the room allows her. "They did something to me. I can't remember what they did, just a lot of blurred images. But you've seen what I can do, I barely feel human anymore."

Claire eyes widen, and both women can hear her swallowing hard.

"That's why you got all those powers, that's how you saved me, but I… I don't understand… it said that the virus was a deadly one, isn't it? How is it possible that it didn't… you know…"

"You're wondering why I'm not dead?" Alice says smirking bitterly." Yes, the Ebola virus kills its host, but in me? Somehow it changed my structure, changed its own structure and I survived, but I think I was the only one who survived."

Claire's mouth drops open. Now she can understand what's happening.

"Raccoon?" Is all that she manages to say.

"Yes"

"My God, Chris" Claire is angry and worried at the same time. "Chris" All that she's got in mind has moved to a corner of her brain, her brother now is her priority, she's moving away from the bed, taking Hunk's backpack trying to find her stuff. "I need to get to the States, I need to find him."

"Claire wait." Alice is moving towards her.

"I need to find him before is too late, I need to…"

"Claire?" Alice has reached Claire's wrist and now she's moving her away from Hunk's backpack. "You can't just go to the airport and buy a ticket to L.A, at this point all communications with America will be under Umbrellas' control."

"I don't care… I need to find my brother." She releases herself from Alice's grip violently and Alice backs off a bit. "You don't understand."

"I do understand Claire, but don't you think Umbrella already got its eye on you? You need to be patient here, I can help you get to the states, but you need to calm down a bit." Claire's explosive behavior is driving Alice a little crazy.

"I can't wait any longer!"

"They'll get you Claire; they'll get you before you step into the airport. You know that."

Those words seems to ease her, she's moving away from the backpack, throwing it at one side.

"Shit"

"I can help you get to the states, but we need to rest." Alice is saying.

"What's your plan?" Claire ignores Alice's last words.

Alice sights. "I need to get inside Umbrella's Zurich facility, I can hack their database, find a way to get us out of here, without being tracked."

Claire nods with her head. So far is a good idea. "Good." She's moving again to the backpack.

"But we need to rest." Alice repeats.

Claire is looking at her, with a murderous look. She knows Alice is right. "Ok, but not for long."


	7. 7 The Good Soldier

**7. The Good Soldier**

**Umbrella's Langley facility**

Albert Wesker is sitting at his desk, he's got a folder in his hands and he's reading the pages in silence. In front of his desk, there's an Asian woman, she's gazing at him with boredom, like she's got better things to do.

"As I told you," She's saying with an exasperated voice. "You can call me later, when you've finished it." She can barely conceal her disdain for this man in front of her.

Silence.

Wesker is still looking at the pages. She really hates this man. The only reason she's still working for him is because of the substantial pay she earns and because sometimes the tasks he gets for her are somewhat challenging.

"And you're completely sure nothing can break this shield?"

The woman sighs; she's getting bored of this problem with the connection within the hemispheres. She doesn't like this kind of task, she's more interested in stealing stuff for the corporation. Still she answers with a steady voice. "Yes, nothing can break through."

Wesker just nods, turning the page.

Out of nowhere, a red light illuminates both their faces, at first the woman takes a defensive position but when she looks at her side, she relaxes her muscles.

"Chairman Wesker," A female child voice interrupts the silence of the room.

The Asian woman sighs with resignation, still not quite used to the dramatic appearance of the AI that controls the building and all other buildings of the corporation.

This time Wesker raises his eyes to the hologram that is formed next to the Asian woman, he notices her move away, obviously uncomfortable with its presence. The corners of his mouth move upwards in a sneer. The woman does not physically react to this, but in her mind she plays out the scene of her choking the life from him.

"Yes?" He says to the hologram.

"You asked me to report on any talk to be given within the company regarding plans against the corporation." The hologram girl says, her voice sweet and inexpressive at the same time.

The Asian woman's eyes opened wide. "You've been spying on the employees?"

Wesker just smiles. "It's an obvious thing to do my dear Ada, you cannot trust anyone in this place, much less these days" He says, emphasizing his words moving the folder in his hand.

"And you send your pet to do it?" She says, nodding her head towards the hologram.

Wesker just smiles, again. "Am I picking up a little jealousy here?"

Ada rolls her eyes, but says nothing.

"There was a conversation 2 hours ago in the Zurich facility," The Red Queen continues "I have it stored in my memory."

Wesker smiles, moving in his chair. "Well let's see it shall we?"

The hologram girl nods and goes to a screen, suddenly the image of two men in an office could be seen. Looking closer, Wesker can see that it is Oswell Spencer's office, where he and his co-worker Birkin are speaking.

_"All the things this woman can do." _Birkin is moving around the office_. "She's gone, and Hunk ... Hunk's dead! My God, Spencer. How can you be so calm? Knowing… knowing that this woman knows all that we have planned over the virus! How you can be so calm if she can take all this and turn it against us?"_

Sitting at his desk Spencer looks tired. _"The fact that I'm not bursting into nerves like you, doesn't means I'm not worried, Birkin, you need to calm down" _

But Birkin is still moving around. _"Calm down? If Wesker finds out ... if anyone realizes what we try to do here ..." _

_"No one is going to notice." _This time Spencer stands up, anger mars his calm features. "_So long as you control those nerves and don't screw everything!" _

_"But ..." _

_"The plan is still active." _Spencer interrupts. "_Steal the damn virus, sell it on the black market and disappear ... it's simple ..." _

_"Not so simple after what happened in the Hive!" _

Spencer sighs, covering his temples with his hands, massaging them _"We had nothing to do with it." _

_"But it can happen again?" _Birkin is not giving up.

_"Damn it Birkin, then what do you suggest we do?"_

Birkin stops pacing around for the first time since the recording started.

"_I will not be calm until we have this woman." _He says._ "I suggest we send another one."_

"That's enough." Wesker says, and the recording stops.

"Black Market, huh?" Ada muses. "Why didn't I think of that before?"

Wesker ignores her, sitting there in silence, while Ada sits at the chair that's in front of the desk, amused.

"Mr Wesker?" The AI says. "Should I send a Unit to extract them?"

Wesker shakes his head. "No, let them think we know nothing but continue watching them. And let them send someone else, we can use all this in our benefit."

Ada says nothing, she will never trust this technology.

* * *

**Interior Hostel de la Prix. Reception.**

Claire's dropping off the keys for the room in the front desk. The owner is there, still looking bored, not paying much attention to his surroundings. He takes the keys not looking at Claire as Alice appears in the room, moving down the stairs, red bag dangling from one hand and backpack on her back. She's pulling out the car keys from her front pocket while Claire heads for the door, that's when she senses something.

"Stop." Her body stiffens.

"What?" Claire turns around expectantly.

Something doesn't feel right. "Something is wrong." She whispers.

Claire looks at her blankly, but Alice is still looking around, searching for something. The man behind the desk lifts his gaze, finally paying attention and looking at both women in amusement. He's used to weird costumers, couple fights and other stuff but this is something new.

Alice is not sure what's wrong yet, but she can feel the danger.

"Get in the basement." She speaks clearly to the owner.

The man snorts. "S'cuse me?"

"Get everyone down in the basement." She yells and then she looks at Claire, who doesn't need a second warning and is moving towards the man.

"The hell are you talking about?" The man says.

"You're in danger. Everyone in this building is."

"Who the fuck…?"

"Look sir, we don't have time to explain, just please, get in the basement." Claire says apologetically.

"But…"

Alice didn't let the man finish speaking, she glides over the desk and quickly moves to the basement door.

"Miss, you cannot ..."

Alice is grabbing the man and throwing him through the door and slamming it behind her, smashing the handle. From the other side she can hear the man yelling.

"Alice what's going on?" Claire says but the only reply she got is Alice throwing her the red bag. "Alice!" She yells.

No answer. Alice is too busy, reaching under the check-in desk, coming up with an old shot gun. Claire wants to ask how in the hell she knew that there was a gun under the desk but she knows she wouldn't get an answer. Alice is pulling open a drawer, filling her pockets with shells.

"Ok. Now you're scaring me." Claire says.

"I'm scaring myself." Alice mumbles while she's moving away from the front door, towards the back door of the hostel. "There's someone here."

"Who is it? Who's out there?"

"Dunno, stay here." She says, giving Claire a warning gaze.

She kicks open the door and walks out pointing the gun forward, ready to shoot, but the small courtyard is empty, she looks around.

"Alice…" Claire is at her back. "Are you…?"

RATATATATA

Alice turns back to Claire, running as fast as she can, grabbing Claire's arm and throwing them both under the staircase.

Windows start to explode and a man enters the room coming from the courtyard. Alice gets up quickly and aims a kick at the man, who loses his balance for a second, giving them both women time to slip through broken glasses and furniture until they reach the door, they're running across the little courtyard to a wall. Alice climbs it up with superhuman speed, reaching down to help Claire, whose jump was less effective. Both are swinging their legs over the wall as the man approaches and shoots, missing Alice's head by a millimeter.

"GO!" Alice yells and Claire lets go, falling to the other side of the wall.

Alice stays on the wall, shooting at the man twice, giving Claire time to run clear. The wall is completely shredded. As Alice takes off running, reloading on the fly, the man is climbing the wall rapidly behind them.

Alice turns around while running, their persecutor is just vaulting the wall, she fires twice but the spray is too wide from her distance. Windows are shattered to both sides of her, she missed him, he stumbles but keeps going as blood runs down his face.

RATATATATA

Alice is desperately trying to think. She's reloading her almost useless gun, as she reaches Claire running through a maze of alleys, looking for a way to get out.

RATATATATA

Flower pots explode around them, they take left, right, right, left… a labyrinth of alleys. People scream around them, but they keep running. A staircase, climbing another wall, sliding, falling, crashing to the ground…

"There!" Claire shouts.

There's a large window at their right, and it's open. They step through and find themselves in a restaurant bathroom. Alice closes the window behind her. Both catching their breath.

"Did… did we… lose him?" Claire chokes the words out. Alice shakes her head, tucking the gun under her coat.

"We have to keep moving." The blonde says as she moves to the door. She opens it and they both step into a Chinese restaurant filled with people.

Alice's grip tightens around the gun under her coat as they both walk out the bathroom, trying to look as calm as possible, towards the front door of the crowded restaurant.

Claire reaches for the handle and opens the door to the street. They are at the exterior of a commercial street, and the street is burgeoning with life. As soon as they are out they notice the sound of sirens, they look at each other and Alice just nods to a police car that's approaching, Claire gets the message and both head down the street, blending in.

It seems like they are out of trouble, still walking through the crowded street, hurrying when several screams interrupt the normal movement of the street. The man comes out of a building, there's no time to hide because he's seen them and he's firing.

Alice tackles Claire to the ground behind a car.

RATATATATA

The gunfire is literally shredding the car, but Alice is moving towards him.

"Alice! What are you doing?!"

Alice shoots two of the last four rounds she got, trying to mislead her attacker to gain her enough time to get closer for close combat. The man ducks behind cars on the other side, and Alice is running towards him, grabbing the destroyed muffler of the car that Claire is hiding behind, swinging it with all her strength and crushing it against the man's back, the man lands head first into the pavement, she turns pulling up the shotgun ready to shoot him but he kicks it out of her hands, it clatters to the ground.

He stands up, they both look at the gun, realizing there's no chance for either one of them to get it, they look at each other and Alice smiles smugly as a ruthless fight breaks out.

The man throws the first punch straight to Alice's temple, but she easily dodges, he doesn't wait and throws a jab to her jaw, Alice ducks and using the momentum of her move she gives a knee high blow to his gut , the air shoots out of him as he stumbles black holding his stomach. He recovers quickly and just as it looks like the fight will continue...

BAM!

He drops to the ground dead, behind him Claire is holding the still smoking shotgun.

Alice lifts her gaze from the corpse, raising an eyebrow she looks at Claire questioning.

"We don't have time for this… morbid entertainment of yours." She says, directly at Alice, smiling.

Alice just laughs, standing at her feet while Claire is moving quickly away from the scene.

They both run fast through streets, ducking down alleys and finding themselves on a main street as they head back towards Claire's car. As they walk past a store with several televisions in the window, the news is reporting that several unexplained deaths occurred in the last few days in the UK.

Alice moves quickly to the drive seat, while Claire is in the passenger seat, they don't pay attention to the news, too bad because the news reports that hundreds of people have been admitted to hospital with undiagnosed symptoms.

Alice starts the car just as the television announces that the local health authorities believe it to be an epidemic similar to the Ebola virus and that the UK government is debating whether to announce a state of emergency.

* * *

Another cheap motel Alice thinks as she steps inside the room. It was strange, but there weren't many cops around, and none of them appeared to be in pursuit of them.

"Umbrella is behind this." Were the first words from Claire and Alice had nodded her agreement.

The man who had come to kill them was now lying dead behind an old ford, all his belongings with him, except his guns and a small backpack, similar to the one Hunk carried. These were liberated by Alice as they had left the scene.

Their current room was just like the previous one, two beds, a desk with a chair, a shelf and a bathroom.

All of Alice's adrenaline has left her system and she collapses into the chair with a gasp, bringing her hand to her right shoulder she feels the moisture on her fingers. Pulling her fingers up, she sees blood. "Shit." She quickly removes her jersey, and the movement sends a painful cramp through her arm. A thin line of blood runs through her white blouse. "Shit."

Claire looks over at her. "What's wrong?" Alice is looking pissed; she shows Claire her bloody hand, moving up the hem of her blouse sleeve with her other hand.

"He shot you?" Claire is at her side in no time, looking at Alice's wound. "That son of a bitch shot you."

"I… I didn't'… I don't know how it happened." Alice muses.

"We need to take out the bullet." Claire says and Alice just nods, moving towards the bed that's closer to the bathroom.

Alice sits on the bottom of the bed, raising her legs up placing them Indian style. She is angry. She cannot believe she didn't feel that before, it may have been due to the adrenaline rush she was having, a combination of the attack and the necessity of getting somewhere safe as fast as possible, but now that her body was relaxing she could definitely feel the pain and annoyance.

Claire looks concerned. "I'm gonna need something to take it out and… and we need gauze, shit… and something to clean it… " She's babbling.

"Claire…" Alice raises her voice, so Claire can hear her over her own. The redhead just stops, glancing at her "It's ok, there's an emergency kit in the backpack were you can find everything we need."

This seems to have soothed Claire's nerves because now she's moving quickly, but relaxed towards the other bed.

Alice smiles to herself. "You can handle and shoot a man with a shotgun." She says. "And not freak out"

"Your point?" Claire muses, opening the backpack.

"That when I'm hurt and bleeding, you completely lose it?" Alice teases, wiggling her eyebrows. "It must be love."

Claire just snorts, still looking for the kit; she's making a mess of it, pulling all the bag's contents around until she finds the small kit.

"Shut up Alice." She says smiling at her.

Alice smiles. "There's a bottle of Scotch in the red bag." She points at it.

Claire threw her a questioning look with one eyebrow up as she heads towards the backpack. "That's why it was so fucking heavy."

"Thought it may be handy." Alice mutters closing her eyes.

Claire gives the bottle to her as she moves into the bathroom to wash her hands. Alice takes a couple of swigs.

"You know how to do it?" She is feeling a little better, calmer as the liquor runs though her body and her mind.

"Eh… yeah, I know the basics, my mother was a nurse and when I was a kid she used to teach me this kind of stuff…" She's in the room again, biting her lower lip. "We never covered bullet wounds, but I watched enough TV."

"That's good enough for me." Alice says giving her an encouraging glance.

They both look at each other, Alice just lifts a questioning eyebrow, because Claire is not moving, she's standing right in front of her, still biting at her lower lip.

"What are you doing?"

"Preparing myself?"

Alice smiles. "You can do it."

Claire stays there still looking at Alice's arm. "Ok." She finally says moving towards Alice. "Um, we're gonna have to, um, your blouse, I have to take it off." She blushes furiously.

"Not going to take me to dinner first? What kind of girl do you think I am?" Alice laughs, earning a glare from the still blushing Claire. Alice shudders slightly when Claire helps her move her arm out of her blouse.

"Sorry…" Claire is feeling kind of jumpy. She's moving Alice's blouse up with trembling fingers.

"Hey, it's ok. I trust you." Apparently Alice has taken her nervousness for fear of removing the bullet, Claire however is not sure that this is the real reason.

Claire is moving the Scotch to Alice's side. Looking at her apologizing in advance of what she's about to do. The blonde just nods. Due the lack of sterilizer the only option they have is the booze.

Claire could feel Alice's body become rigid with the pain, but the woman doesn't make a sound as the liquid falls on her wound. Claire carefully applies a piece of gauze, trying to clean it as best she can before grabbing the tweezers.

"Ready?"

"As I'll ever be."

She digs into the flesh with the tweezers trying to locate the slug, when she hears the metal clash; she opens the blades to get a sure hold. She starts pulling out the piece of metal as Alice shudders again; taking a couple more swigs from the bottle with her other hand.

Claire is having problems with the bullet, because after several attempts she still fails to remove it. Neither of them spoke for almost 5 minutes. Alice just taking swigs from the bottle, feeling better with every gulp and Claire is just swearing under her breath, getting more annoyed each time the bullet slipped from her grasp.

"I swear… I would kill that motherfucker if ... well, If I hadn't already." Claire murmurs.

Alice giggles, and Claire lifts up her gaze surprised at the sound; looking at the bottle then at Alice who is smiling a little too much, then again at the bottle.

"Jesus, Alice," She says furrowing her brow. "You took almost half of the fucking bottle!"

"You really love that word don't you?" Alice asks curiously.

Claire snorts, turning her attention to the wound again. "You're one of a kind, you know that?"

Alice giggles again, taking another swig of the bottle. Claire is still digging for the bullet, her red hair leaning down in a curtain, Alice looks up to Claire reclining over her, she's so close that she can smell her, she closes her eyes feeling dizzy, the smell of her own blood and the alcohol invading her nose. She feels like she's starting to fall sleep, but suddenly images from her past assault her.

_In her mind, she is no longer in the old motel room. Her mind is being transported to a train station, this time her memories are different, there are no fast images from her life, this time it is like if she's there and still she knows she's dreaming. People walk around, absorbed in their own business, no one pays her attention. She looks up, there's a sign dangling from the ceiling, a sign that tells her that she's in the Zurich train station, or at least her mind is._

_Her eyes capture a familiar figure walking towards her, she cannot remember the name of this man but she's sure it's one of her many coworkers. The man walks past her, without recognizing her, not even knowing she's there, he's moving to a nearby door, one that has a sign of "authorized personnel only", the man looks at his sides, both ways, making sure no one is looking, apparently he doesn't realize that Alice is walking toward him while he's pushing the door, disappearing behind it. _

_Alice is about to follow but when she starts to push the handle everything around her starts to twist, she's closing her eyes, hoping her mind will let her go to the motel room again, when she open her eyes she's not in the train station anymore but inside a subway platform._

_Around her, people walk; several of them dressed like any other businessman, but most of them are dressed in black uniforms and carrying weapons. Alice is moving to one of these people, on his chest a red and white coat is sewn on his bulletproof vest._

_Alice sighs, yet no one around knows she is there."Umbrella," She mutters to herself, starting to remember. "Umbrella Zurich facility."_

_She's looking around, her eyes wide open. "This is the way they enter the building."_

"What did you say?"

Blue eyes snap open. Alice looks around the motel room and Claire's still at her side, struggling with the bullet. "Ah ha!" Claire exclaims with joy, as the bullet finally comes out of the wound. She grabs the bottle back from Alice as she applies a little more of it to the wound. "Sorry." She mutters.

"It's ok. Don't worry… it doesn't hurt anymore." Alice says, looking at her but thinking about what just happened.

"I bet it doesn't." Claire smirks, not lifting her gaze from the other woman's shoulder, she is removing the blood that has dried and stuck around the wound with a piece of gauze. "What did you say?"

Claire's completely focused on what she's doing and that why she's not aware that Alice is looking at her weirdly.

"Claire I…" Alice starts. "Uhmm… I…" She mutters.

This time Claire lifts her gaze, her face so close that Alice can't help but think how beautiful she looks."You what?"

"I… I'm not sure" She says looking at Claire right in the eye, still feeling the buzz from the alcohol.

"What's wrong?" Claire says, but Alice is looking at her in a way that Claire can't decipher at all.

Alice's mind is a jumble of thoughts, the memories are still fresh in her mind, her brain asking her what to do with them, but the liquor is still in her system, making her not really care about what just happened in her mind, forcing all her attention to the woman in front, who looks intently at the open wound, cleaning it as gently as possible.

"Thanks." She whispers and Claire can feel her breath caressing her face.

Claire is blushing again. "For what?" She manages to speak, biting her lower lip.

There's a pause. As if Alice is thinking whether to say her thoughts aloud or not.

"That's the second time you did that thing with your lip Claire." She finally says, gazing at Claire's lips. "It's driving me crazy."

Alice's warm breath is sending shock waves through Claire's limbs. Her eyes go wide and her blush deepens.

"I think the booze is working." She says still mesmerized by the look on the other woman's face. She tries to move but her body won't respond. "What did you thank me for?"

Alice smiles and Claire feels like a thousand clichéd butterflies took flight in her stomach.

"For staying with me." Alice says, moving her hand and running her thumb over Claire's palm.

"You really are drunk." She's trying to ignore the trail of fire Alice's hand has sent shooting up her arm.

"Maybe." Alice whispers, moving even closer to her friend. "But it takes the pain away."

Claire wants to keep her eyes open but Alice's gaze is so intense she's struggling to do so, she can see that Alice is moving forward really slowly still looking intensely and Claire is not breathing properly, she's barely breathing; her head is not working at all, everything inside of her tells her to go away, that this is dangerous, that she needs to hurry up and find Chris and that this is not going to help her at all but Alice's lips are mere millimeters from hers.

Giving up, Claire's eyes screw shut as Alice is moving her head forward, crashing their lips together. Both woman not thinking about anything else but this moment.

And when their lips finally meet Claire feels her whole body reacting to it, the way her stomach felt before is nothing compared with what she's feeling right now. Her mind is completely filled with all the sensations Alice's lips are provoking in her. Alice's kiss is slow and hesitant at first, just moving her lips against Claire's gently.

Alice's not so sure if she's stepping over the line so she pulls away a bit, waiting, looking at Claire measuring her actions, she feels like the air is heavy around them, she starts pulling away ready to apologize but then Claire is reaching out a tentative hand towards her face, just moving the tip of her thumb along her lower lip, smiling, Alice smiles too, sighing in relief when she feels that Claire is not pushing her away, instead she's dipping her head forward.

All her hesitation disappears as she moves her head forward, meeting Claire's lips again, this time kissing her more firmly yet so sweet that Claire feels like her whole body is lighting up.

Claire's hands move instinctively to Alice's cheeks brushing her fingertips along the blonde's jaw when she feels her bottom lip slip tenderly between Alice's teeth and she can feel that Alice is smiling as her hands wander along her arms, touching her lightly leaving trails of fire in Claire's skin.

The kiss becomes increasingly intimate as Alice is pushing her a bit towards the bed, letting her body collide with Claire's, still kissing her slowly and gently while Claire's body is shivering wildly when she feels the length of Alice laying so graciously and smoothly along hers, placing only the proper weight for their bodies to fit in all the right places but not enough to quell Claire with her body.

An almost inaudible sigh escapes Claire's lips as Alice deepens the kiss, parting her lips and moving her mouth more solidly against hers, driving her completely out of her mind. Claire's arm reaches up to wrap around the back of Alice's neck pulling her down into the kiss even more.

But then a painful sigh crosses the room. Claire's eyes snap open as she feels Alice pulling away, looking at her with fear in her eyes, grabbing her own arm. Her violent movement causes her body to fall backwards off of the bed, to the floor. Claire's struggling to move, taking a sitting position in the bed, not understanding a thing about what just happened, she moves tentatively to the bottom of the bed, wondering if Alice was just uncoordinated when a strangled cry leaves Alice's parted lips, she's in a fetal position on the floor, moaning in pain.

"What the…?" Claire is on her feet, trying to move closer to Alice, but the sight of Alice's arm stops her. "Oh my God."

She cannot believe what she is looking at; obviously neither can Alice, because she's watching with horror as a bump is moving under the skin across her biceps.

Alice is sitting on the floor, her teeth clamped shut, trying not to scream. The liquors effect on her is long gone, Claire is stunned, not knowing what to do, she quickly drops to the floor next to Alice, watching her arm in disbelief.

A broken cry leaves Alice's parted lips as the lumpy thing moves up to her shoulder traveling quickly through her wound, Claire watches as the wound closes itself before her eyes, healing the flesh inhumanly fast, almost as soon as it had appeared in her body is was gone. Alice's eyes closed in pain, and before Claire can help, Alice's upper body falls down to the floor.

Claire is speechless, she's starting to panic when Alice's eyes snap open. As soon as she starts getting up Claire is by her side.

"Are you OK?"

"I... I think so." She says, sitting up. "How did I…?

"You passed out." Claire is explaining, helping her move her to the bed and giving her a glass of water.

Alice is gulping the contents down. "Thanks."

"Alice what… what was that?" She says looking the other woman straight in the eye.

"I need to get to an Umbrella facility; I need to know what they did to me." Alice explains.

The room descends into silence.

"I… I had a dream… another one… I know where I need to go." Alice whispers. "There's a secret entrance in the Zurich train station, an entrance just for Umbrella employees"

Claire is looking at her in awe.

"The entrance is not completely controlled; it is easy to slip in, if I'm correct there's a panel after that door, where you have to access a code. An underground train connects the platform to the interior of the building. I think I can easily go undetected."

* * *

Disclaimer: Same as chapter 1.


	8. 8 Thrill Vermillion

A/N: Hello! I know I have not been very talkative, so that's why I want to thank every1 for the reviews. Keep rewieving you guys! :B oh also I want to apologize for the delay n.n sooorry.

Webminky: Thank you my friend for helping me with this chap! :D

* * *

**8. Thrill Vermillion**

"I want to go with you" Claire's jumping up throwing things into the various bags.

At those simple words Alice clenched her teeth, having a good idea how the next part of this conversation was going to go. "Claire we can't go to Zurich, Umbrella has probably circulated our photos around, they're going to be looking for us everywhere, probably with violence."

Claire stops packing looking at Alice in confusion. "You just said we had to get to Zurich, now you're saying we can't go?"

"I'm saying _we_ can't go, but _I _am going"

Finally Claire got the point.

"I need you to wait here, where it's safe. I'll find out what I need, then come back for you."

Claire snorts audibly, smiling sardonically. "Yeah right, like that's going to happen."

Alice exhales audibly, rolling her eyes at the expected outburst.

"You're NOT coming Claire." Her voice growing angrier.

Claire just stares at her, challenging Alice with her smirk.

"You're staying here."

"I don't fucking think so."

"Oh come on!" Alice says moving around to calm herself. "You're not prepared for this!"

"Prepared?" Claire says moving towards Alice. "I can take care of myself."

Alice smiles. "Oh, yeah right with what? A toaster?. I can't find my way around a strange and need I say hostile place if I have to look out for you."

"Oh I'm sorry Alice, I had no idea I was such a fucking burden, I mean I should have known that you had a plan to save us that didn't involve me and a _toaster_ or a shotgun and I'm certain that you would have been fine stitching your fucking shoulder up yourself." Claire took a deep breath in order to continue her rant.

"Dammit Claire you know that's not what I mean!"

"No, I think it is" She says invading Alice's personal space. "I can't fucking believe you were just thanking me for staying then kissing me and all that bullshit and now you're leaving me behind!"

"Bullshit?" Alice says getting angrier. "I'm trying to fucking protect you from all this hell. If you think for one minute I am going in there with you along for the ride so your pride doesn't get hurt, you're wrong. _You_ stay here, _I_ will come and get you when it's safe and that is the end, this is not up for debate."

Alice was certain she had won the argument after no more words were forthcoming. The resounding smack across the side of her face forced her to think again.

"How fucking dare you." Claire's swinging her hand again but before it could make contact, Alice grabbed her wrist pushing her up against the wall.

"You know what they say Red?" Alice says, her voice is a scary cold whisper. "The first one is free, the second one is gonna cost you."

"You don't scare me." Claire spat out and Alice chooses this exact moment to get closer to her, sliding her right leg between Claire's to keep her more easily cornered. Claire tries to ignore the sensations that this causes in her body, still too angry to give up her ego.

"No?" Alice mutters, her eyes are a pair of electric blue wells. Both women are looking at each other, fighting with their gaze.

"No" Claire mutters but the chill that runs up her body, suggests otherwise.

_Shit_

"Uh huh" Alice mumbles, smiling, moving her head towards Claire's.

Claire struggles to get free, but it only causes Alice to lean further against her. "Take your fucking hands off me." She says, still moving.

"No." Alice says her greater body mass ensuring that a wild and furious Claire isn't going anywhere until she calms down.

"Get the fuck off me."

"No." Alice whispers against her ear sending another chill down Claire's body.

Claire gave up trying to move her hands and settle instead for trying to kick out against her tormentor, still fighting against the heat that's gathering in her body.

It looks like Alice is enjoying the ride, because her face is one of complete amusement.

"Fuck you Alice!" Claire says haltingly, getting tired of her attempts to get free, but not giving up just yet.

A chuckle leaves Alice's lips, one that sounds completely sexy in Claire's ears. Unable to get enough force behind her to kick Alice away, Claire raises her legs wrapping them around Alice's waist trying on squeeze the life out of her.

"Not working." Alice purrs, annoying Claire even more.

Tired of fighting without getting any result, Claire raises her pelvis trying to push Alice away, however as soon as her crotch presses against Alice's a soft exhale exits her mouth. Alice, figuring out what Claire was originally trying to do, pressed against her harder, further distressing the redhead.

Claire's annoyance now is completely replaced by heat; another sigh leaves her mouth as soon as Alice pushes again against her core.

"Get…the fuck of me!" Claire repeats, trying one more time but her voice cracks when Alice's lips touches her earlobe slightly.

"I don't think that you mean that" Alice whispers in her ear, her husky voice provocative.

Alice gaze is on hers as she moves her head towards Claire's, her blue eyes showing desire.

The fight dropped out of Claire as fast as it had entered, she dropped her head forward bringing their lips together, softly, a kiss, followed by another, followed by a third that stayed in place, her mouth opened to Alice as the woman began to ravish her mouth and grind her hips into her in an almost violently rhythmic way.

Alice dropped Claire's hands which immediately buried themselves in Alice's hair, grabbing hold and pulling them closer. Alice didn't waste time with buttons she grabbed handfuls of cloth on either side and ripped the fabric apart. Claire's head slammed backwards against the wall as Alice wasted no time in shoving her bra out of the way and attacking her breasts with the same fervor as she had Claire's mouth.

"Oh fuck, Alice" She gasps out.

Alice looks up, replacing her mouth with her hands. "You just love that word don't you?"

Claire laughs. "Right now? Fuck yes."

Alice smiles at her. The grasping of her hands slowed to a caress as she looked Claire in the eyes. "You are so _fucking_ beautiful."

Claire found herself unusually speechless, she reached her hands back and drew her thumbs gently down the side of Alice's face. She ran her thumb across kiss bruised lips losing another groan when Alice sucked it into her mouth. Claire pulled it back and kissed her again, hard and wanting. "I want you inside me."

Alice pushed the legs from around her waist and using more finesse than with the shirt, unzipped the pants, dropping them and the underwear down to the floor. As soon as Claire stepped out of them Alice hiked her back up to her original position. Claire immediately started grinding herself against the rough fabric of Alice's shirt.

Alice trailed slow kisses against Claire's face as her fingers made lazy circles in between Claire's thighs. She watched as Claire tried to keep her eyes open and focused on Alice's face. With a quick smirk she thrust her fingers inside, pushing with her wrist as deep as she could. When Claire's head tipped backwards to cry out, Alice was there to cover her mouth, her tongue matching the rhythm of her fingers. Harder and faster she pounded into Claire, her hips adding leverage to her hand as the other kept Claire held up against the wall. She pulled away from the kiss and spoke quietly into Claire's parted lips.

"I could use a hand here."

Claire could barely focus on the words let along their meaning, so Alice spelled it out for her.

"Get yourself off, I want you to come while I fuck you."

Claire ran her hand across Alice's face, stopping at her parted lips, pushing two of her fingers into the warm wetness. Alice sucked her fingers leaving them wet and she watched as Claire ran her hand down her front, across her breasts that had been rubbing up against Alice, down between her thighs until she could feel Alice's hand sliding in and out of her. With a cry, she started to move.

"So close. So close. Don't stop, please don't stop."

Claire dropped her head back against the wall, Alice dropped hers forward taking Claire's breast into her mouth, sucking hard. Claire continued panting, crying out random words interspersed with cries to the gods. Alice felt the grip on her fingers and she increased the pressure as Claire flew apart around her.

She slowed down and gradually took her fingers, pulling Claire in tighter to her body. She left kisses across her throat, her shoulders, anywhere she could reach, waiting for Claire to come back to her.

"God." Claire laughed. "Mmmm, I vote we argue more often."

Alice laughed quietly with her. "I don't know, that's quite the dirty mouth you got there."

Claire looked up at her from underneath her messy hair, with a smile, she grabbed Alice's hand that had just taken her to heaven and back and with a sly grin she sucked the fingers one at a time, maintaining eye contact with Alice. She watched as Alice began breathing heavily through her nostrils as Claire unwound her legs from Alice's waist and slid seductively down the length of Alice's body until she was on her knees .

"You think so?" She asked, as her nimble fingers began to unbuckle the belt before deftly undoing the zip and sliding the material down Alice's legs. "You ain't seen nothing yet Blondie."

* * *

**5.31 AM**

She's leaving.

Alice's moving quietly around the room; looking continuously at Claire's figure on the bed just to be sure she's not waking up. She's throwing her new guns in the black backpack. She needs more ammo for sure; the last guy that Umbrella sent to kill her wasn't carrying too much, not the amount she needs to bring down a complete building if necessary. She's thinking about breaking in to a gun store when a mumble breaks the silent room. She looks at the bed, expecting an angry Claire cursing at her for trying to leave her behind, but the redhead is still sleeping, just stirring a bit.

Alice exhales silently, relieved, not knowing she was holding her breath, she's moving towards the bed again, she's been doing it a couple of times since she's been up, knowing that Claire could wake up at anytime but still she can't help herself. Claire's legs are moving under the thin sheets. Alice smiles when the sheets slip down Claire's moving legs, revealing her smooth back, stopping just at the marked dimples in the bottom of her back, inviting Alice's fingers to run over them. Again.

It was around 4am when she woke up under Claire's limbs, it's a lie to say that she didn't stayed there at least 20 minutes admiring her beautiful features. Claire was lying on her chest with her left arm around Alice's waist and her head on Alice's chest. Her soft red hair was falling over part of her face and on her back; Alice thought she had never seen anything as beautiful.

Alice had moved slowly so as not to wake her companion, Claire just murmured inconsistencies but tightened her grip on Alice's waist, preventing her from sliding off the bed. Alice had chuckled silently at this, looking adoringly at the other woman. Claire breaths could barely be heard but what surprised Alice the most was that her face held not a single line of concern, but rather seemed that she felt completely relaxed being there in Alice's arms.

Alice smile widened, remembering what had happened no more than a few hours ago, remembering how the body of the redhead had been moving naturally with hers, fitting in all the places where two bodies must be connected, both woman worshiping each other until the inevitable exhaustion invaded them.

As soon as she got rid of the grip of the redhead, Alice was up on her feet, getting dressed and searching around for the stuff she needed for her trip, she just needed her guns and a bit of food, the rest of stuff she was planning on leaving to Claire, so she could have plenty provisions until her return.

Her return.

_If I really make it back_. She thought.

She wasn't sure if she would live, nor whether she was going to see Claire again anytime soon, maybe that's the reason why she's been standing there thinking.

_You need to go_. The voice at the back of her mind was saying to her.

But Alice was not moving; she can't stop looking at the beautiful redhead, wishing she could just get rid of her own clothes and settle again besides Claire's body. She has packed everything she needs, she's ready to go but she can't make herself move from her spot, right in front of the bed, looking at Claire.

"Damn it." She murmurs to herself.

She's thinking, she's so close to waking Claire up, but the voice at the back of her mind is yelling her to get the fuck out of there. Another minute passes until she gathers all her willpower and moves away from the redhead.

"Damn it." She repeats, taking a gun out from her backpack and placing it on the table, leaving it for emergencies. There's a hub of notes there in the table and a pencil. Alice looks at it, wondering if she should just go and disappear altogether or leave a note to calm Claire. Giving up and reminding herself that she should have already left the place; Alice takes the pen in her left hand and scribbles a line. Before the voice in her head screams again, Alice leaves the room, not looking back.

She closes the door behind her, making sure it closes without any sound. As soon as the door is closed she wants to turn around and head back, instead she moves quickly through the hall until she reaches the lobby. There she exits the motel without saying a word to the owner who's looking at the TV in shook. She got no time for checking the news, not right now; she needs to find a vehicle right away.

She puts on the hoodie of her jacket, pulling in her blonde hair and lowering her gaze, she doesn't want to attract any unwanted attention so she's moving quickly down the street, her senses are steady; she knows there's no danger around her. The street is almost deserted, not many people wander around and that's strange because even at early hours, the road is always busy.

Maybe it's better that way because she needs to find a vehicle as soon as possible and the lack of pedestrians around gives the immediate benefit of not attracting attention.

Not giving much thought about the lack of people around she walks around for an hour, making sure she's really far away from the motel to steal a car.

Another 20 minutes passes when she finds a car parked on a completely deserted street. Alice looks around, no one is walking by, buildings have side windows with lights off and the shops are still closed. The place is perfect, she walks close to the old blue Honda and with a fast movement that is almost impossible to grasp by the human eye, she opens the door. For anyone looking, the woman opened her car door with her own keys.

Alice gets in the car, looking in the rear mirror just in case, from her right boot she pulls a knife, and with another flick she pushes it through the ignition. The car starts roaring, and Alice does not waste time to get away from the street.

There are very few cars on the main roads. When she stops at a semaphore, Alice opens the glove compartment, curious to know a little bit about the car's owner. But there's nothing interesting there, except perhaps…

She chuckles. Removing the object of her amusement and closing the glove compartment again.

"Nice." She mumbles looking at her reflection in the mirror while she puts the aviators on.

When the light changes back to green the blue car disappears quickly, moving to Zurich. Now she only needs to find some ammo.

* * *

**7.23 AM**

Green eyes snap open.

Claire is looking around, still getting rid of the sleepiness; her mind's still clouded by sleep. The first thing she feels, is fatigue all around her body, as if she had been running a marathon all night. Around her, the sun comes through the holes in the curtains, illuminating a little room.

_What room?_

Her memory starts to wake up when her eyes focus more on her whereabouts, the room, the motel room where she had spent the night with Alice, all around Alice, fucking Alice.

_Alice_

Her eyes widen in horror, now completely wide awake she looks at her side, but the other half of the bed is empty, there's no Alice in there, she touches the sheets and the pillow in that part of the bed, completely cold, not warm as if a body was there a moment ago and the owner of that body was in the bathroom or somewhere close. No, they're completely cold, giving notice the absence of the other woman.

She closes her eyes in anger.

"Mother fucker!" She screamed, getting up from the bed, starting to pick up her clothes from the floor.

She doesn't even look at the bathroom, knowing Alice is gone, looking around the room she noticed that a backpack is missing and rest of supplies are accommodated as if someone had been trying to arrange them the right way for a long period of time.

"I cannot fucking believe it." She says, looking at the wall clock while placing her jeans and boots. "I cannot fucking believe it, damn it Alice!"

Claire begins to move around and the keys to her mustang capture her attention.

"Pff ... gentlemanly" Claire muttered as she starts to pull the provisions in the red bag.

It only takes her a few minutes to gather everything around, she's moving towards the door, when the gun over the table catches her attention, and there's a tiny piece of paper at its side. She reads it, stopping just a second there.

Rapidly she takes the glock putting it in the belt of her pants, placing the bottom of her blouse over it. Looking for the last time at the note she opens the room door and closes it behind her violently.

Inside the room, the note flies around with the wind created by the door and falls on the floor.

_"It's not bullshit."_


	9. 9 Intruder

**9. Intruder**

**12.47**

Alice's hands are gripping the steering wheel with enough force to bend it. She has been driving non stop all morning, not paying much attention to the traffic around her and the complaints about her speed. Her eyes are on the road ahead, however her mind wanders in other directions, the motel room. Claire possibly just woke up, and she can't help but imagine Claire looking indignant and pissed off, she chuckles a bit, knowing that if Claire is awake she's probably cursing like a sailor.

She doesn't know why but she finds it both amusing and sexy. She keeps smiling while her mind creates thousands of scenarios where an angry Claire would yell at her but all ending with the redhead all around her, possibly with little clothing.

"Right… focus" She mumbles, still smiling. Something catches her eyes and the thoughts of the other woman go to the back of her mind.

There's a lonely small shop on the roadside.

Alice slows down while she drives and passes the store, it seems to be closed. She looks at the back of the store in the rear mirror, it looks like the perfect place to get in, grab a few weapons, ammo and get away without attracting unwanted attention.

"Show time" She says as she gives a prohibited U-turn on the road, looking for the right place to park the car.

There are no vehicles around, so it makes her task even easier. Quickly, she parks the car behind some garbage cans, still studying the surroundings, her senses tell her that there is no danger, so nimbly and quickly, moving with superhuman speed Alice runs to the door of the store, it is shielded by a metal curtain. Alice smiles smugly, while with one hand she destroys the lock and lift the curtain a little.

Her senses tingle a bit, her instincts tell her that the place is protected with an anti-theft alarm.

"Go figure." She mumbles as she tries to concentrate all her power.

Her mind begins to spread outside her body, as if a part of her were moving to where she wants it to go, quickly acknowledging all that it meets and watching everything in her mind as if it is before her eyes. Her mind travels around the store until it finds the main unit of the alarm. Alice tries to concentrate more and she smiles again as her mind surpasses the plastic parts that cover the device, disconnecting the mains lead of the appliance.

Alice's smile widens while she kicks the door behind the iron curtain and enters the store, wondering if that power that enabled her to see beyond could be put to good use next time she'll cross paths with the redhead. She chuckles again, looking around and grabbing a big black bag to fill it with things.

Quickly she takes boxes of ammo and places them on the bag, making sure to move rapidly just in case someone shows up. She puts some holsters in the bag too, along with five more guns, just in case.

Alice is ready to go when something at the back of her mind stops her. She looks around, exhaling soundly.

"Damn conscience." She murmurs, pulling out some bills from her pockets and placing them on the counter, making sure it's enough to cover for the things she took.

She exits the place not giving her mind chance to make a "sorry" note for the owner of the shop.

"What's up today with me and notes" She murmurs to herself as she throws the big bag in the back of the car.

**13.03**

Claire's foot is on the accelerator, all the way down. She's driving crazy fast, passing the other cars and earning an occasional yell from the drivers.

"What's your fucking problem?" She hears a man yelling as she passes another car.

"None of your fucking business!" She yells pulling her head out of the window and almost falling out the car. From the rear view mirror she can see the man giving her the finger."Oh so very mature of you," She starts yelling in German, knowing damn well the man is far behind and it's impossible for him to hear her, still. "I can drive blindfolded you bastard! Just chill out!"

Claire has never been a reckless driver, yes she has always enjoyed the speed, driving around over the speed limit, feeling badass and stuff, but what she's doing now is completely another level.

"Fucking Alice" she says, turning violently, advancing on a few more cars.

**17.05**

All the driving, with nothing but her guilty thoughts is driving her insane. For a moment there the thought of Claire pissed and cursing was funny, but then again she'll be pissed off because she had been behind. She's not quite sure Claire would forgive her for having done that.

"Damn it." She looks at the clock, calculating that maybe she'll get to Zurich by 2am.

"Great." She mutters as he pulls down all the car windows, letting the breeze refresh her face but her mind is still full of guilt.

She's thinking about pulling off the road for a bit to stretch her legs when her eye catches the radio system, she decides that a little music can help her relax and she knows she can't afford to lose time pulling off. In the CD compartment of the radio there's a nameless CD, so she just presses play.

She looks at the map that's in the passenger seat, there's a gas station not too far, and she needs to refill the tank as soon as possible, she's started to think again about a pissed off Claire when her eyes widen in surprise as the sound of Haddaway asking her what is love emerge from the speakers of the car.

**17.10**

"Don't fall asleep ... don't fall asleep… don't… you… fall… asleep ..."

She can imagine her mustang in the evening news, completely lit on fire and surrounded by onlookers. She chuckles.

_"That woman was driving like crazy!" She imagines the finger friendly driver from before on the camera. "It was expected that something like this would happen."_

"Oh God." She is trying with all her willpower. "Damn... it's all…because of Alice... fucking wonder woman."

Her hand goes to the radio button, trying to divert her mind from the stupor that the monotony of the road is causing to her mind. However, the device chooses that moment to stop working.

"Amazing." She yells as she pushes the button harder. "This... piece of shit"

She looks at the map that's in the driver's seat, and exhale audibly, it's a long road ahead, and she can't stop, she's hoping to win the race.

Her nerves are killing her, she's hoping she'll get to Zurich in time, she doesn't knows how to get into Umbrella's platform, so she needs to hurry up, she's not entirely sure how long Alice's head start got her.

Before leaving the motel, Claire had asked the owner about the time Alice had left, the man was not sure. "Maybe an hour and a half ago." He said, not helping much. "You should take care, lady." The man had said suddenly. "Bizarre murders are happening all over the country."

Claire just had nodded, hoping all those bizarre murders had nothing to do with Umbrella and the virus stuff, but knowing deep down that she was hoping for too much. She had run to her mustang, eager to find Alice.

**17.30**

"…baby don't hurt me" She's mumbling. "… don't hurt me…"

Three repetitions of the same track and a road with no changes later, Alice's mind is completely away from her thoughts. "This is ridiculous…" She snorts and she starts moving her thumb on the wheel with the tempo of the song.

The map that was in the passenger seat starts moving dangerously with the wind coming through the window, almost flying outside the car.

"Damn." Alice's gaze is away from the road as she grabs with an agile movement and grabs the map before it is completely out of the car.

"…no more…whaaat is…FUCK!" She cries just as she handles the wheel, moving the car to the right just in time to dodge and pass a lump laying in the middle of the road, motionless. "What the ..."

Alice pulls the brake and parks a few meters away from the lump, looking at it in the rear mirror. Peering, she realizes that the bundle seems to be a person.

Alice stays there for a moment, turning off the radio, thinking what to do, she could just get out of there quickly, that's not her problem. She looks around, the road is completely deserted, there is not a single soul around. There are no cars, nothing.

"Damn." She says as she opens the door and goes to the still body, walking carefully, moving slow. She can only see the back of the head; it appears to be a man.

Her senses tell her that something is wrong, she can feel it in the air, something tells her that this person is not entirely alive.

_Not entirely alive? How is that possible?_

She stops thinking when the body starts to move a bit, like trying to get on its feet.

_He's alive!_ She thinks as she approaches still moving carefully.

"Hey." She says, not quite sure if she can help the man. She has her doubts.

There's no answer, but the man is almost on its feet. There's a smell of rotten meat, she can't be sure but she thinks it emanates from the man.

"Hello?" She says, feeling stupid as she approaches the guy "You ok?" More stupid.

It seems like the man has heard her, because slowly he turns around and..

"Oh my God."

His arms and neck skin is in tatters, his shirt is all bloodied and Alice can see there's a hole in his gut. But the most impressive and scary thing is his face, his eyes are completely bloodshot, expressionless, a huge gash runs from his jaw along his neck and his lips.

His lips have been torn from his face, leaving a malevolent and grotesque grin in its place, the man open his mouth letting out a animalistic moan, he starts to walk towards Alice, raising one arm almost like asking for help.

But she remains in place, not knowing what to do. Her mind is a jumble of thoughts and memories. She has lived this before, she knows it but she can't remember it. How can it be possible? The memory of the dream about the dogs that appeared to have been massacred crosses her mind, this looks very much like that.

_Impossible. _She thinks, the man is still walking towards her with slow steps. Alice's not sure but she thinks she can hear the sound of something broken and out of place in the man's leg that cracks with each step he gives.

"The virus." She mutters. "The virus is here"

The man let out another guttural sound while he gets closer to his prey, she takes a step back, still absorbed in her memories, now she can remember everything, the plan that went wrong, the non accident that killed all the workers in The Hive, and their return to life as undead beings, eager to feed on anything that moved. The man grabs her arm, watching her eagerly, with dead eyes. He holds her strong while opens his mouth wide, he's about to tear the flesh from her arm when he falls to the ground with a thud, his head dangling in a strange position, and Alice's hands grabbing it with a strong hold. The man completely falls to the ground like a rag doll.

"Damn it." Alice mutters, while she starts running to her car, leaving the now dead undead man in the floor.

Her only thought right now is whether it should be the best to return for Claire, things have changed too fast in a short time and now she's not quite sure if it was a good idea to leave Claire behind, not now that the virus is spreading all over the world.

* * *

**Umbrella Zurich**

Spencer is walking around his office, thinking, making a plan on what he should do next, when the desk phone start to ring. He touches his temple lightly, he wants to rest but he knows he cant do it, not now that everything is getting out of control. He takes the phone and exhales.

"Spencer." He says, a feminine voice came from the other line. "It's confirmed?" He asks felling at the weight of the world falling in his shoulders. "Ok." He hangs up the phone, sighting.

"This thing is just getting worst" He mumbles as he pulls out his cell phone from his pocket. He dials a number and it only rings twice. "I need a helicopter."

* * *

**02.33**

Finally she's at Zurich, she's driving around the train station, measuring her next steps, she needs to get rid of the car as soon as possible, also she needs to prepare her guns.

She's heading to an alley, still looking around, but there's no sign of Umbrella. This makes her more nervous, first the decrease of people around, then her encounter with the undead in the road and now there's no signs of Umbrella at all.

_What the fuck is going on._

She parks the car were it can't be easily seen and then moves to the back, taking off her jacket and putting on a series of gun leather holsters around her whole body.

She's making a simple plan of actions in her mind while she stores lots of ammunition in her small new backpack.

_The plan is simple: Get in…_

She places both Magnum Desert Eagles she stole from the Umbrella hitman at her sides.

…_kill everything that steps in her way…_

Her sub machine guns Brugger & Thomet MP-9 fit perfectly at either side of her thighs.

_.. hide, find information…_

Just in case she stole a pair of Berettas and now she's placing them at her back.

…_run and shoot..._

Several pairs of high-yield incendiary grenades go to her belt, along with a couple of sharp NR 43 combat knives.

…_and then get the hell outta there._

Finally she takes her Mossberg 580 shotgun and places it in a hand bag, trying to not pay attention to the reminder of Claire's perfect posture using it. As she steps out of the car she puts a black winter gabardine on, just to prevent unwanted attention around the citizens.

However, there's not a single person walking around, and Alice's thoughts travel again to her undead buddy. She moves nimbly around the platforms of the station, knowing well where to go. There's a room at the corner of the platform where the entrance to the Umbrella station is, so she moves towards it just in case some Umbrella employee would appear while she got prepared to break through the entrance. She opens the room door carefully but as soon as she close the door behind her, her senses start to tingle, she's not alone, she can feel it, she stops there, ready to attack.

"You…" A voice from behind her reveals that indeed she's not alone.

Alice turns around ready to come up with a smart ass response when out of nowhere an unexpected fist crosses the air smacking her across the face.

"Bitch." The owner of the fist says, and Alice chuckles a bit, grabbing her nose with her hand.

"Yeah I've hear that befo…" She can't even lift her gaze when a slap hits her hard in her cheek. Again.

"Oh you've got to be shitting me." Alice murmurs as she recovers from the bitch slap.

"That one was free." Claire is saying, the ghost of a smile curving her lips up. "You know you deserve it."

"The first one yeah, but the second one? Really, Claire?" Alice chuckles, feeling relieved that Claire's standing next to her, the redhead just raises her eyebrows, expecting.

"Yeah yeah I guess I deserve both of them…" she mumbles, smiling at her companion.

"And don't…don't do that again." Claire says moving closer to Alice, her eyes softening.

"Honestly?… I don't think I can." Alice murmurs and Claire smiles.

"Now what?" The redhead says.

"Now we go through that door over there." Alice says, pointing to the door outside the room, she has seen in her dreams." But Claire are you sure?"

"Oh don't start with the bullshit woman." Claire says throwing a murderous look at her.

Alice only raises her hands in defeat. "Ok, but you need some equipment." She says as she drops her bag on the floor.

"What you mean? Oh…" Claire eyes widen as she looks through Alice's bag. "Did you just rob a military arsenal or something?"

"Something like that." Alice mumbles as she pulls out a pair of guns from the bag along with a holster and some ammunition. Claire is looking at her with her mouth wide open.

"What? A girl got to be prepared" Alice says as she hands Claire the shotgun.

"Now that's more like it." Claire says as she rapidly moves the gun in her hands, looking at the bag. "Alice, that's a lot of guns, did you… did you think that I would come after you?" She says smiling.

It appears that Alice is blushing. "Maybe?" She says with a smile, but then her face changes, to one of concern. "Hey I don't…"

"I can do it." Claire interrupts her. "Don't worry, nothing bad is going to happen to me."

Alice just nods, she still can see the holes in this plan, anything can happen and she doesn't want to risk Claire.

"Seriously..." It seems that Claire knows what she's thinking. "I can handle it." Claire reaches for Alice's hand running her thumb over it. Alice gently squeezes her hand and smiles.

"So now that you are sure about this." Claire says looking at the guns and holsters again. "What should I wear?"

"Nothing."

"Excuse me?"

_Shit_

Alice is blushing again.

"I… I mean it doesn't matter… it's not like you need clothes for where we are going. I mean…" her eyes go wide and her blush deepens. "I… what I meant is that your clothes are ok and besides it's not like we got a hell of a wardrobe here." She manages to squeak out.

Claire is smirking. "I was talking about the guns, genius." She says as she starts to put the holsters around her body.

"Oh yeah uhm whatever you want." Alice says moving towards the door, watching to see if someone is outside. "It's nothing like uhm, nude, that wasn't what I was talking about." She murmurs turning red again.

"Sure…I know what you mean." She winks at Alice, who's completely mortified.

* * *

Delay delay delay I know... sorry...


End file.
